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INDIAN IDYLS 


BY 


AN IDLE EXILE 


AUTHOR OF " BY A HIMALAYAN LAKE,” “ IN TENT AND ^UNGALOW, 
“IN THE MUTINY DAYS,” ETC. 





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JAN IS 1 892 _ // I 

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NEW YORK 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

104 & 106 Fourth Avenue 


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Copyright, 1892, 

BY 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 


All rights reserved. 










THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Maharajah’s Guest, 

The Major’s Mess Clothes, g 

In a Haunted Grove, 25 

How We Got Rid of Hunks, ..... 42 

My Wedding Day, 58 

Mrs. Caramel’s Bow-wow, 87 

The Tables Turned, xoi 

A Polo Smash, 

After the Wily Boar, 123 

In the Rajah’s Palace 135 

Two Strings, 153 

A Modern Lochinvar, 164 

My First Snipe 183 

Mrs. Dimple’s Victim, 195 

Lizzie ; a Shipwreck, 206 

How the Convalescent Depot Killed a Tiger, . 219 

Faithful unto Death, 229 

The Haunted Bungalow, 266 

Christmas with the Crimson Cuirassiers, . . . 284 

In Death They were Not Divided, ... 307 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


There will be those who will at once say that 
these stories have been suggested by Rudyard 
Kipling, but they were written long before that 
gifted author began to write. To the readerwho 
sees beyond the surface the similarity between 
these Idyls and the Plain Tales from the Hills is 
simply that of scene. The author of “Indian 
Idyls” lived fora long time in India and naturally 
in the English colony, so that, if she wrote of the 
life in that country at all, it was, of necessity 
pretty much the same as Kipling found it. There 
is a more human element in these stories than 
in Mr. Kipling’s. The people are not so much 
bits of character as they are real people. There 
is more love in their love affairs, more of pathos 
in their sorrows. There is also a virility about 
these stories that one does not expect in a 
woman’s writings. The mess room gossip is just 
as masculine, and the cigar smoke just as thick, 


vi 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE . 


and perhaps a little thicker, than if a man had 
held the pen. Altogether they are remarkable 
stories. “ An Idle Exile” will find immediate 
favor among those who like strong plots elabo- 
rated in a few words, a good literary style, and a 
sharp wit. 


THE MAHARAJAH’S GUEST. 


Probably as perfect a specimen of what a 
paternal Indian Government can produce, in the 
way of an anglicized native nobleman, was to be 
found in His Highness the Maharajah of Pugree- 
poor. He had been under the thumb of English 
tutors ever since his infant steps toddled out 
of the precincts of the zenana, and had been 
brought up on British ideas. As a result, at the 
age of five-and-twenty, he was a dapper little 
fellow, dark-eyed and Italian-looking, able to 
hold his own at cricket and polo against an Eng- 
lishman, and as yet a stranger to the snares of 
the brandy bottle and the nautch girl, which had 
ruined, first the figures and then the brains, of 
so many of his ancestors, long before they had 
reached his age. 

Pugreepoor was the husband of one wife, a 
dusky little nonentity, whose form, as yet “un- 
fettered by stays,” and whose feet, as yet “un- 


2 THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST . 

spoilt by a shoe,” he was having squeezed into 
the fashions of Paris, as reproduced on the banks 
of the Hooghly. Moreover, the impecunious 
widow of a general officer had been specially 
retained to teach the Maharanee deportment and 
manners, and to pioneer her through the intrica- 
cies of Anglo-Indian social etiquette. 

For the Maharajah was gradually becoming 
one of the orr^ments of society in Calcutta and 
Simla. He owned large tracts of land some- 
where or other in the Peninsula, and his income 
rivaled that of the richest of English dukes. He 
could command vast battues of tiger and big 
game, wide stretches of jungle, and equip with 
an army of coolies and elephants globe-trotters 
of high degree, who were anxious to see some- 
thing of sport during their scamper through 
India. But all the same Pugreepoor was not a 
reigning prince, and was only entitled to a very 
meager salute of big guns at a durbar compared 
with many a bloated native potentate who could 
not write his own name, or read it either. 

But Pugreepoor recked little of these things. 

He aspired to be English among Englishmen, 
and was already planning a visit to England dur- 
ing the Jubilee festivities. As London society 


THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST. 


3 


takes very kindly to anything dusky, be it Red 
Indian or Hindoo, when once out of its own hab- 
itat, Pugreepoor hoped to spread his pinions and 
widen his horizons in the very highest spheres. 
In spite of the rather negative attractions of his 
dusky bride, to whom he had been married at 
the tender age of ten, there was one lesson, 
taught by the customs of Anglo-Indian society, 
which Pugreepoor showed himself only too apt 
to learn — this was the noble art of flirtation. As 
a rule, lovely woman in India has a holy horror 
of the native, however much her sisters in Bel- 
gravia may adulate him ; for she knows but too 
well the point of view from which he regards her 
and her manners and customs. But gradually 
for Pugreepoor an exception was made. He was 
really not a bad-looking little fellow. He 
waltzed charmingly, and his wealth was so enor- 
mous that he was lavish with presents on the 
very least pretext where he was anxious to 
please. Slowly, but surely, the giddy gunner, 
the cavalier cavalry-man, the rising competition- 
wallah, some day to be worth his weight in pen- 
sion, indeed even the fascinating A. D. C., with 
the sweet sisterly confidential manner to women, 
found himself distanced by the little Maharajah. 


4 


THE MAHARAJAHS GUEST. 


Little Mrs. Campbell, quite the prettiest 
woman up at Simla that year, who, in bygone 
days of happy memory, might even have had a 
poet-viceroy at her feet, threw over her last new 
pet A. D. C., and the young lordling in the Lan- 
cers, for Pugreepoor. Her taste may not have 
been unimpeachable, but his diamonds were irre- 
sistible. Nothing was now wanting to complete 
the Maharajah’s English education. He was 
taken up as Mrs. Campbell’s authorized “bow- 
wow,” was taught to fetch and carry, and to 
stand patiently against the wall when not danc- 
ing with her, and worship from afar. For her 
was the pick of his stable; she sanctioned his 
guests to tennis and dinner, allowed him to go 
nowhere where she was not invited, and took 
him out calling, and even to church. Really, the 
Church Missionary Society owed her something 
for her praiseworthy efforts to reclaim this brand 
from the burning. Mrs. Campbell trained the 
Maharajah so well that she was even able to 
“lend” him occasionally to one or other of her 
female chums, to dance or ride with. This, be it 
observed, is the crucial test of a “bow-wow’s” 
devotion. 

Now, naturally enough, Mrs. Campbell, having 


THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST. 5 

taken all these pains with Pugreepoor, during the 
gay six months of a Simla season, was not going 
to let him escape again into the giddy whirl of 
Calcutta, while she returned to the dusty little 
station where Captain Campbell had been left to 
grill alone. 

“Maharajah,’' she began in her most winning 
manner, as the pair cantered, after the races in 
the bosky vale of Annan, up the winding paths 
among the rhododendrons to the Mall, while the 
tree-crickets whirred overhead among the ilexes, 
and the coolies panted up under their fair bur- 
dens, “Maharajah, I’ve never been down to Cal- 
cutta. It would be real nice of you to ask me 
down for the race week. I shall just die at 
Dustypoor.’’ 

To speak was to be obeyed. The devoted 
Pugreepoor instantly made all the needful plans, 
and Mrs. Campbell selected his house-party for 
the races. 

Even the happiest times must have an end. 
Government offices closed, the soldiers* leave 
season came to an end, and there was a general 
exodus from the mountain Capua, and a cease- 
less stream of tongas galloped down the road to 
the plains. The Simla world dispersed over the 


6 


THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST. 


length and breadth of the Peninsula. But Pug- 
reepoor went straight down to Calcutta, with the 
supreme Government folk, and began to install 
himself in his new bungalow in Park Street. 
Mrs. Campbell, meantime, meandered about 
some large stations, paying.visits, riding at single 
anchor, as it were, awaiting the Maharajah’s tele- 
gram to bid her fly south. 

The Calcutta tradespeople had a fine time of 
it, and rejoiced exceedingly that Pugreepoor was 
going to do the thing in style this year. When 
everything was ready he dispatched the brief 
wire to Huddelabad, which was to gladden Mrs. 
Campbell’s heart : 

“All ready. Come at once.” 

But to his intense surprise he received an an- 
swer which staggered him for a moment : 

“My terms are three hundred rupees a month 
and all found.” 

But Pugreepoor was too much epris to hesi- 
tate. Evidently the golden-haired one was in a 
playful mood. So he telegraphed forthwith : 

“Terms be hanged! Come at once!” And 
knew no peace till he received an answer to say 
that Mrs. Campbell would arrive by the evening 
mail, which came in in time for dinner. 


THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST 


7 


So the Maharajah set to work and collected 
a little party intime to dine with her on arrival. 
There was first and foremost the people’s Bill 
(that is to say, the people’s Bill in India — no 
connection with a personage bearing that sobri- 
quet in England). There was that rising young 
secretary Ben Blewett, and his charming wife, 
one of the three lovely sisters known throughout 
India as “Faith, Hope, and Charity” (Mrs. Blew- 
ett was Charity, because her kindness to man- 
kind was so universal that (t covered a multitude 
of sins). With her came, as a matter of course, 
the high official to whom Blewett was indebted 
for his rapid promotion. Then there was the 
most popular Adjutant-general that ever breathed, 
beaming and boyish ; young Lord Scamperly, the 
A. D. C. ; and, last but not least, Mr. Justice 
Squirrel, of the High Court, with several brand- 
new stories. 

The train was late; it often is, when it steams 
into Howrah station after its three days’ journey 
from Peshawur. Everyone was assembled in the 
palatial drawing-room awaiting Mrs. Campbell’s 
arrival. Amid the roar that followed one of Mr. 
Squirrel’s stories (given as a sherry-and-bitters 
just to stimulate people’s appetites for something 


8 


THE MAHARAJAH'S GUEST 


better to follow) even the Maharajah’s expectant 
ears failed to hear the carriage drive up. 

The heavy portiere was flung back, and a rust- 
ling white-robed attendant announced : 

“Mrs. Campbell!” 

An unwieldly old woman, whose metier was 
but too plainly indicated by her appearance, 
waddled into the room, and panted out to the 
petrified Maharajah: 

“How is the lady, sir? I ’opes I’m in time!” 

Poor Pugreepoor! In his haste he had forgot- 
ten that there might be more than one Mrs. 
Campbell in a large place like Huddelabad. 


THE MAJOR’S MESS CLOTHES. 


A TRUE STORY. 


In Major Munnie, Paymaster of the Royal 
Scilly Islanders, was to be seen one of those few 
remaining specimens of Crimean officers still to 
be found floating about the subordinate ranks of 
the British army. His contemporaries, the men 
with whom he had scaled the heights of the 
Alma or shivered in the trenches before Sebas- 
topol, had mostly gone up higher in every sense 
of the word. But lack of gold, in the days of 
purchase, had kept poor Munnie from rising; and 
now for years he had been seated, metaphorically, 
in our pay office, the lawful object whereupon 
the impecunious subaltern might vent alternately 
his powers of importuning and wheedling. He 
was a shrunk, dapper little man. His little 
remaining hair had run to seed in floating gray 
whiskers, such as Leech’s warriors wear in old 
Punches , at the period when only “plungers” 


IO THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 

went in for what they termed “moustachios.” 
He was a good old boy, an<f we of the Scilly 
Islanders all loved him; and in converse propor- 
tion, we all loathed Mrs. M., his better half. 
And his better half she was in more than one 
sense, though not in all. To begin with, she 
would have made about two and a half of the 
little major; and secondly, even to the most 
casual observer, it was apparent that she had 
indeed bettered her position in life when she 
married him, though who she was and how it had 
come to pass was a secret, forever locked in 
Munnie’s bosom. Mrs. Munnie exhibited a ten- 
dency to cultivate upon her upper lip the hirsute 
appendage which his ancient traditions forbade 
to the major. She was also, in her domestic 
way, quite as great a financier as her husband. 

Report said that the poor little major, who all 
day long dabbled his fingers in the coin of the 
realm, never had an anna he could call his own, 
but that madame doled him out such as she 
thought good for him, and kept a stern eye on 
his mess bill. He had all our sympathies, espe- 
cially toward the end of the month, when pay- 
day was approaching and we wanted him to let 
us overdraw. We would be profuse then in our 


THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. II 

invitations to come and dine with one or other of 
us at mess, and in other small ways try to give 
the poor old boy a little fun on the sly. 

At the time when this veracious history took 
place the Scilly Islanders had just been moved 
to a capital station, which I will call Guramghur. 
The Munnies took up their abode in a corner 
bungalow, facing the barracks, and Ruffleby and 
I chummed in the next corner bungalow. Be- 
tween us and the Munnies, back to back, as it 
were, with the latter, and so facing our bunga- 
low, resided a black-and-tan family of the name 
of Hooper. Hooper plre, who wrote the magic 
and elastic initials P. W. D. after his name, was 
thin as a lathe. Madame, on the contrary, after 
the manner of Eurasian women of middle age, 
presented the appearance of a feather-bed tied 
round the middle with a bit of string. Their two 
daughters, however, were only whitey-brown, and 
as pretty a pair of little girls as you could wish 
to see. Ruffleby and I soon became acquainted 
with our neighbors, for they lived a good deal in 
the veranda, where madame was constantly to be 
seen, in an appalling state of deshabille, rowing 
her servants from the depths of a huge arm-chair. 
In the cool dusk of the evening Ruffleby and I, 


12 THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 

riding down the Mall, would walk our ponies by 
the side of the little “Hoo-poos,” as we had 
christened them, who tripped daintily down the 
watered roadway in patent-leather shoes and 
white stockings. 

On Sundays, the Hoopers, along with the rest 
of the dubious complexioned population of 
Guramghur, occupied seats in the gallery of the 
station church. It was an old-fasioned Georgian 
edifice, probably built in the time of the first 
Afghan war, and with a melancholy association 
to all who studied the graves in the white-walled 
cemetery close by. All the European garrison 
of Guramghur were at church parade that fateful 
Sunday in May, 1857, when the mutiny broke 
out in the native lines across the canal, and were 
minus their arms. The rebels seized the latter, 
shooting down their officers, and decamped for 
Delhi, leaving the European troops defenseless 
and powerless. Since then, in Guramghur as 
well as all over India, the British troops take 
their rifles to church with them and lodge them 
in sockets in the seats in front. 

But to return to our Hoo-poos. We subs, who 
herded together in a seat behind our superior 
officers, soon established a system of signals and 


THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 13 

telegraphic messages with the fair ones in the 
gallery, which somewhat militated, I fear, against 
the benefit we should have derived from the 
chaplain’s discourses, especially when in addition 
MacQuinsie, our funny man, would make his own 
interpolations. 

Soon after our arrival at Guramghur, our ser- 
geants gave a dance in barracks, to which, of 
course, they invited the mess, on a card of levia- 
than proportions. Having ascertained that the 
little Hoo-poos were to be among the guests, we 
laid ourselves out for a lark, and invited some 
equally festive spirits among the gunners to 
come and dine and go with us. As Ruffleby 
and I went out for our evening ride, we passed 
on the Mall the Munnies’ barouche and seedy 
pair of gray countrybreds. Mrs. M. was taking 
the major out for his drive. The poor old boy 
looked dreadfully bored. 

“Look here,” I said to Ruffleby, “let’s ask the 
Backsheesh Sahib to dine, and take him with us 
to-night. He looks as if he was very down on 
his luck.” 

“Happy thought,” rejoined my companion; “I 
must get a hundred rupees advance out of him 
next week, or I shall be on my beam ends, so 


14 THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES . 

it’ll be as well to get him in a good tem- 
per.” 

“We’ll tell him he’ll meet the little Hoo-poos. 
I’m sure he’s rather smitten in that quarter, for 
I’ve noticed he always sits and smokes in his 
back veranda now, so that he can look over into 
their compound and watch the fair young things 
at play. But, by Jove, Mrs. M.’ll never let him 
come !” 

“Leave it to me, I’ll square her,” cried Ruf- 
fleby, and he cantered after the carriage. 

“Have you met the colonel, major?” he cried. 
“He wants to see you particularly; was asking 
where you were just now, when I left the mess.” 

Unsuspecting Mrs. Munnie had the heads of 
the grays turned messward, and Ruffleby joined 
me hastily. 

“Once in the mess, I’ll keep him safe. You 
ride back to his house, and tell his servant to 
send his mess clothes over to the mess at once, 
He must dress there. Quick! Before the old 
girl gets home !” 

Our plan succeeded admirably, for the prisoner 
was only too willing to be caught. The bearer 
and the clothes arrived, and with the assistance 
of a stiff peg the major was emboldened to send 


THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 15 

a note back by him, to the effect that he was 
going to dine at mess. 

We had a very festive dinner. The paymas- 
ter’s hilarity almost equaled that of our guests, 
and he became a different man. Ruffleby whis- 
pered to me he should ask for two hundred at 
least. 

Dinner over, we adjourned to the sergeants’ 
mess in little companies of twos and threes. 
Some drove, some rode their own or other fel- 
lows’ ponies, some tried to walk, and at least 
three mounted on Derehurst’s old gray Arab 
commonly called The Omnibus, because he was 
in the habit of conveying two or three fellows to 
mess. 

The sergeants’ mess was a bower of beauty, 
tastefully decorated with evergreens and pink 
paper roses. The gallant non-coms were deep in 
the seemingly endless mysteries of the Circassian 
Circle when we arrived. This was succeeded by 
the Triumph and Payne’s First. Out of consid- 
eration, perhaps, for everyone’s toes, round 
dances were in the minority. Between the 
dances there was no sitting out in dark corners, 
such as was wont to obtain at some dances which 
we Scilly Islanders have given. The warriors, in 


i 6 the major's mess clothes. 

stiff tunics buttoned up to their throats, prome- 
naded round and round the room with their 
partners, or conducted them to the peg-table, and 
gave them hot sherry. 

“And now, Mrs. Maacartney, an’ what’ll ye 
take?” 

“Thank ye, kindly, I won’t take anything. I 
had a thurst, but I’ve quinched it.” 

Into this paradise of decorum, inhabited by 
fair creatures with divers-colored necks and gor- 
geous frocks of aniline hues, we, the new arrived, 
imported, I am sorry to say, an element of row- 
dyism. We introduced each other all round, to 
such fair ones as attracted our individual atten- 
tions, under high-sounding names, and the pro- 
motion was most rapid in the Scilly Islanders 
that night. 

I had just finished, notwithstanding the scowls 
of a leviathan bombardier, in presenting “Lord” 
Derehurst to a pretty little woman in a red dress, 
the exact shade of her red arms and neck, when 
I felt my elbow nudged. The paymaster jerked 
his head toward the little Hoo-poos. 

“Introduce me to our fair neighbors, my boy.” 

I steered him across the room to the vicinity 
indicated. Why will Eurasians always dress in 


THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 17 

white? They looked very pretty, all the same, 
preening and bridling, with orange bows in their 
dark hair, for all the world like the cheeky little 
crested hoo-poos who infested the veranda. 
They were twittering in their soft chee-chee 
tongue to a circle of admirers who made way for 
us. 

“Miss Hooper, allow me — introduce Major- 
General Munnie, C. B. — Aide-de-Camp to the 
Queen [whisper] — who — most anxious — make 
your acquaintance.” 

“Oh, my! You don’t say! No? I never did 
one real general know, at all!” And the dark 
eyes were fixed reverentially on Munnie’s bald 
head. 

Here my color-sergeant collared me and led 
me off to drink more hot sherry, after which the 
regimental sergeant-major and the pay sergeant 
repeated the process. I have no very clear or 
exact recollection of the events of the ball. 
The temperature of the room was a hundred and 
something, and the betunicked sergeants shone 
and trickled and mopped, and then shone and 
trickled and mopped again. The floor was very 
heavy for dancing, and very hard for falling. I 
was charged in a wild polka by a Hussar sergeant 


1 8 the MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES . 

about six feet two and ignominiously floored. I 
have a vision of old Munnie standing up in Sir 
Roger about 2 A. M. (the dance had begun at 
eight sharp) with one of the Hoo-poos, whom he 
tried to kiss as he turned her round. Imagine 
Mrs. M.’s feelings, had she seen ! I could not 
exactly say what time we most of us got back, 
somehow, to our own mess for some grilled 
bones. Ruffleby and I escorted the paymaster 
thither. 

“In for a penny, in for a pound, you know, 
major. Must have some supper. None waiting 
for you at home, you know !” 

The vision of what was awaiting him at home, 
poor old boy, was so appalling that his spirits 
only revived - again after supper and champagne. 
Then, somehow or other — one never knows how 
these things begin — there was a good deal of 
promiscuous bear-fighting, and a slaughter of the 
anteroom chairs and settees. I know I had one 
lamp-shade, two tumblers, and a pane of glass 
down in my next mess bill. The couches and 
chairs we shared equally. I also had a bruise on 
my left shin, which nobody paid me for. 

While Ruffleby was dancing a fling down the 
mess table (the marks are there on the mahogany 


THE MAJOR'S. MESS CLOTHES. 19 

to this day) some of us trussed old Munnie and 
the doctor with billiard cues, and set them to 
cock-fight. It was the event of the evening. I 
backed the paymaster, and lost my money. A 
wild chorus of the last new comic song was going 
on round the piano, to which Derehurst was giv- 
ing a brandy-and-soda, because he declared it was 
out of tune, and wanted picking up, when some 
of us had to lend a hand to pack our guests the 
gunners into one of the tikka gharys , or flies, 
which had been parked out patiently in the com- 
pound all night. We laid Rufifleby on the roof 
full length, as we could not make him sit up any- 
how, and he eventually got to his bed, I believe. 
Then I found old Munnie at my elbow again, 
very dejected. 

‘‘Look here, my dear boy, whatever am I — do. 
Daren’t go home like sh'ish — think of the 
missus?” 

He indeed presented a pitiable sight. There 
was a huge knick in his trousers, besides rents 
where there had once been brace buttons, one 
sleeve of his mess jacket was torn out, the shoul- 
der straps were wrenched off, and it was split up 
the back, the result of his trussing. What was 
to be done indeed ! 


20 THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 

“You won’t leave me, my dear boy; see me 
through it, there’s a good fellar.” 

I swore never to desert him, and we wended 
our way somew’hat disconsolately down the road 
in the light of the glorious Indian full moon. 

“She mustn’t shee ’em. Never let me dine at 
mess again. What shall I do? Sure to find 
them to-morrow. Always looks into all my 
drawers,” moaned poor Munnie, as we ap- 
proached his residence. 

“She shan't find them, major,” I said; “we’ll 
hide them, and you can telegraph to Calcutta for 
some more. She must not find them at any 
price.” 

“No go, my dear fellar; always looks every- 
where. Keeps my keys, you know.” 

We were standing actually in the gateway. In 
another minute we should rouse the slumbering 
chokedar , and see the dreaded vision of Mrs. 
Munnie prepared to welcome us in the veranda. 
Suddenly an inspiration seized me. I dragged 
the paymaster into the shadow of a tree and 
tore off the remains of his mess jacket. 

“Quick, major!” I exclaimed, in a whisper 
hoarse with the awful gravity of the situation, 
“Quick! Slip off your trousers. Cold be 


21 


THE M A JOE'S MESS CLOTHES. 

hanged! We must get rid of them. We’ll bury 
them here in this flower-bed.” 

Two Eugene Arams engaged in concealing 
some hideous deed of darkness could not have 
worked with greater alacrity and trepidation 
than we two did there in the shadow of the 
mango tree. Happily the ground was soft, hav- 
ing been just dug and irrigated by the mallee , and 
in a very short space of time the last vestige of 
scarlet and gold lay concealed beneath the sur- 
face, and we breathed freely. 

The shivering major skipped, in his airy attire, 
out into the moonlight and up the steps. He 
was nearly knocked down in the veranda by a 
rug hurled at him from behind a half-opened 
door, and a voice thundered : 

“Take that on to the drawing-room sofa. For 
it’s all you’ll get this morning.” 

When I ran against Munnie coming out of his 
office next day, his face lit up with a smile and a 
wink as he flourished a telegram at me. 

“All serene. The new ones’ll be sent up in a 
week. I’m saved !” 

Ruffleby got his advance without a word of 
demur, and the sky seemed clear. • 

Not quite, though. We had a misunderstand- 


22 THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES'. 

ing with our little Hoo-poos, which led to their 
transferring their fickle affections to two fellows 
in the artillery. It came about on this wise. 

My stable-companion and I had arranged, the 
one an early morning walk, and the other an 
early morning ride, with our fair neighbors. At 
6 A. M. Hoo-poo number one, tired of waiting, 
for her tryst with me was for 5.30 A. M., sent 
over to my bearer to awake me by force. 

Knowing, by experience, how utterly futile is 
any attempt to din a • European name into a 
native’s head, she merely told him to rouse the 
little sahib. There is a matter of a few inches 
between Ruffleby’s height and mine. But the 
valet was more than usually crass. 

He awoke the wrong man, and, after a lapse of 
twenty minutes, returned to Miss Hooper with 
hands clasped, and a desole expression. 

“Missy sahib, your honor, protector of the 
poor, I have done my best. Four times have I 
got the sahib out of bed — once, even, have I got 
one leg into his trousers — but he always turns 
into bed again, and says he is not the man !” 

My Hoo-poo declined to accept this explana- 
tion. A coolness ensued with the above-men- 
tioned result. A few days later as I left bar- 


THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 23 

racks, the adjutant asked me to follow the pay- 
master over to his bungalow and mention to him 
some official matter which had escaped him. 

I found Munnie and his lady seated in the 
veranda, the former refreshing himself after his 
arduous duties with an ante-tiffin peg. Madame 
received me grimly, I thought, so I hastened to 
broach the subject of my visit. 

I was interrupted by the bearer’s appearance 
with the daily post, and a brown paper parcel 
came by parcels post. Munnie looked at me and 
seemed embarrassed. Mrs. M. regarded him 
sternly. 

‘‘What have you got there, Munnie? Open it 
at once, and let me see what extravagance you’ve 
been up to now.” 

The paymaster obediently but nervously cut 
the string. I wished myself anywhere else. 

“It’s only a new suit of mess clothes, my 
dear,” he faltered; “mine were getting rather 
shabby,” and the neatly folded garments fell on 
the matting before him. 

Mrs. Munnie rose to her full height and ad- 
vanced, glaring at him, repeating in tones of thun- 
der, 4 ‘Rather shabby, are they?” and she disap- 
peared into the house, 


24 THE MAJOR'S MESS CLOTHES. 

I looked at Munnie, Munnie looked at me. 

“Don’t go, my dear boy — you’re not going!” 
implored my accomplice, seeing me glance round 
as if to escape. 

At that moment the mem-sahib reappeared 
suddenly. Her expression was enough to quail 
the stoutest heart, and she brandished aloft 
before our conscience-stricken faces the exhumed 
mess clothes, muddy and tattered. 

“Rather shabby, are they?” she repeated. “I 
should rather think they are!” 

I was a base coward, for— I turned and bolted. 
Ever afterward the poor old Backsheesh Sahib 
was never allowed to dine at mess, except on 
Christmas and other rare occasions, when we had 
a ladies’ dinner party, and he could be accom- 
panied by Mrs. M. 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


The following is a little episode out of the 
days when my husband, an officer in the Engi- 
neers, was in civil employ in India, and held the 
appointment of superintendent of what I will call 
the Guramghur and Ganges Canal. Now the 
life of a canal engineer is slightly monotonous. 
It may be a degree higher in social status to that 
of an engineer in charge of one of the State Rail- 
ways, and it may embrace a wider sphere of 
action than that of engineer in charge of barracks 
or fortifications in a garrison station, but it lacks 
variety. During the cold weather, for six 
months on end, we marched up and down that 
wretched stream, which ran through as uninter- 
esting a tract of country as is to be found in 
Northern India. At each halting-place — and I 
got to know them by heart, as they were placed 
at regular intervals of ten miles or so along the 
bank — the same pitching up the same camp, with 
everything in each tent exactly the same as it had 


25 


26 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


been the day before. Outside, the same muddy, 
sluggish stream, with its painfully regular banks, 
planted with the same tamarisk, acacia, and such 
light trees. We marched in the early morning, 
arriving at our new abode by breakfast-time, and 
found the mess-tent pitched, and the patient 
cook preparing our repast in the open air over a 
grate scooped out in the sun-baked earth. After 
breakfast my husband held a kind of little court. 
The head men of the neighboring villages ap- 
peared. Always the same mutual grumbles 
between them and the sahib — too much water let 
out over their rice fields, or not water enough ; 
arrears of dues to be paid ; and an everlasting 
finding fault with the native subordinates in 
charge of this portion of the canal, corrupt and 
untrustworthy as all native officials are, and who, 
as usual, had pocketed the money and neglected 
to keep up the banks. A slip and a flood were 
quite an excitement in our life. 

Such an event had occurred at the time of 
which I am writing. The heavy showers that 
generally fall in Northern India about Christmas- 
time had come earlier than usual, and we found 
our habitual camping-place under water, and our 
tents pitched for us in a square grove of man- 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE . 27 

grove trees, about half a mile from the canal, and 
within a few hundred yards of a native village of 
mud huts. It was not at all a bad place — shady, 
which was a consideration at noon, even at that 
season of the year — and a change from our usual 
surroundings. So we decided that it would do 
very well for us to halt in for Christmas 
Day. 

Christmas Day is kept by the English in India, 
however remote and lonely they may be, and in 
spite of utterly uncongenial weather and sur- 
roundings, in a way that has much of pathos in 
it. There is a melancholy striving to keep 
Christmas as “at home” — a going to church 
where possible, gathering together of friends and 
acquaintances, a decorating of church and gate- 
ways with flowers, and much feasting — all which 
hollow mockery does not still the longings for 
home, and the thoughts which will fly back to 
days that are no more. 

Our Christmas on the canal was generally 
lonely enough ; but, on this occasion, we were 
looking forward with delight to the advent of 
two visitors. One was our old friend, Colonel 
Rydale, an ally of many years’ standing, now 
retiring and going home for good, and who had 


28 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


promised to come and spend Christmas with us 
on his way down country. 

The other was Jack Denver, a subaltern of 
artillery, quite new to India, and new to us also, 
though we were very anxious to make his 
acquaintance; for Jack had just come out from 
England, engaged to my youngest sister Lily, 
who was to follow and marry him a year later. 

Our younger guest arrived in camp first, riding 
across country on a new purchase, ahead of his 
coolies and luggage. The colonel came later in 
our dog-cart, which we had sent to meet him at a 
point where the canal was crossed by the high- 
road, and which brought him thence along the 
canal bank, a road strewn with ugly holes and 
pitfalls for the unwary. 

“Now, Bob/’ I said to my husband before din- 
ner, “listen to me. You’ll have plenty of Colo- 
nel Rydale, who is not pressed for time; but Jack 
must go on to his battery the day after Christ- 
mas Day, and I want to find out what he’s like ; 
so, after dinner, you go and have a quiet smoke 
with him alone, and I’ll entertain the colonel. 
Men always wax confidential over a pipe. I like 
the look of him well enough, but I don’t believe 
he’s half good enough for dear Lily.’’ 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 29 

Bob did as he was bid (he always does), and, 
after dinner, I found myself sitting in the dining- 
tent alone with my elder guest, while Bob car- 
ried off Jack to smoke in the office tent. 

It was a lovely moonlight night, such a night 
as you only get in the tropics, but chilly withal, 
for the wind was rising, as if rain were coming. 
We had a little charcoal fire in our portable stove 
in the tent. 

Colonel Rydale talked of many things and 
people over his coffee, but at last I got him on 
to the subject nearest my heart. 

“Colonel Rydale,” I asked, “do give me your 
opinion about our young friend yonder; I am so 
interested in him for my sister’s sake.” 

“Seems a nice fellow,” the colonel replied, 
“what I’ve seen of him. Well-set-up and smart, 
and no nonsense about him. Odd thing, you 
know, but he reminds me so in appearance of a 
great chum of mine I lost when I was a young 
fellow and quartered at Punkahpore in this dis- 
trict, not far from here.” 

“Indeed,” said I; “and was he nice, your 
friend?” 

“A better fellow never breathed; and good- 
looking too — just the image of that boy.” 


30 IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 

“Poor fellow! And what did he die of?” 

“Die? He didn’t die; that’s the funny part of 
it. Queer story altogether. I never could make 
it out — he was lost — missing — not heard of.” 

My feminine curiosity was roused. 

“What a strange thing! Do tell me, Colonel 
Rydale.” 

I poured him out another cup of coffee ; I bade 
the bearer bring him a live piece of charcoal 
wherewith to light a fresh cigar, and, thus en- 
couraged, the colonel told his tale, what there 
was of it. 

“It’s many years ago; I was a youngster, so 
was Jack — his name was Jack, too. We did 
everything together; shared the same bungalow, 
rode together, shot together. One of our favor- 
ite haunts for snipe was a jheel (morass) near this 
very place. We often came out here, and I 
recollect it because Jack admired very much a 
really very handsome native girl, whom we saw 
drawing water at the well near the village over 
there. We laughed at Jack in the mess about 
her, and the head man of the village, one of 
whose wives she was, got jealous, I think, and 
shut her up, and would not let her show herself 
when any of the sahibs came this way shooting. 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 3 1 

She really was a very pretty girl — so tall and 
slim and graceful; an oval face — and such eyes! 
not a bit like the average native woman.” 

“Well, colonel,” I laughed, “she seems to have 
made an impression on you too, after all these 
years, for your memory to be so fresh! But I 
am more interested in Jack.” 

“Well, it was one Christmas. I was ordered 
away suddenly on detachment duty. Jack took 
ten days’ leave, and went shooting. It was a 
splendid snipe season, and there were lots of 
black buck in this part then. Well, Jack went 
away on leave two or three days before Christ- 
mas. The day after Christmas his bearer, the 
only servant he had with him, turned up sick 
with fever, saying his master, who was at an old 
rest-bungalow not far from here, had sent him 
back because he was so ill. Well, do you know, 
Jack was never seen or heard of again. The dis- 
trict was scoured, the natives all interrogated, 
and there came a rumor that he had taken a dak- 
gharry (a post-chaise) and gone down the Grand 
Trunk Road toward Calcutta. But it was never 
confirmed, and no trace of him was ever found. 
The civil officials did their best, but Jack had 
utterly disappeared. His name appeared in 


3 2 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


orders, after a bit, as absent without leave. 
After a month or two it was struck out of the 
service in the official gazette.” 

“But was there no reason for his disappear- 
ance?” I asked. 

“None that I could ever find, except that the 
poor fellow was very hard up, and owed a lot of 
money. But that was the case with several of us 
in the ‘Dashing Drabs’ in those days. A court 
of inquiry sat on his affairs, and we raised a sub- 
scription among us, and paid up, that the name 
of the old corps mightn’t suffer, and also because 
we all missed poor Jack so. No, it was a rum 
affair altogether. I didn’t understand it at all, 
and I never shall.” 

At this moment the entry of my husband and 
Jack cut short our conversation, and soon after- 
ward I retired to my tent, leaving the gentlemen 
to sit up a little longer over their pegs. 

My tent had been pitched a little way from 
the others, in a corner of the square, regularly 
planted grove, under a particularly fine mango. 
I got into my dressing-gown, dismissed my ayah, 
and, anxious to lose no time, sat down to begin 
at once a letter to Lily for the next mail, with an 
account of my first impressions of Jack Denver. 


IN A HAUNTED GEO EE. 


33 


I was busy writing when Bob came in and went 
to bed and to sleep promptly, for he had had a 
worrying day in the office. 

Presently I finished, and putting away my let- 
ter — so eulogistic and so sanguine — raised the 
curtain of the tent door, to have a whiff of air 
before getting into bed. 

The brilliant full moon, sailing at intervals 
from under scudding clouds, flooded the wide- 
stretching level plain with a haze of silver, and 
cast inky-black shadows in the grove under the 
mangoes. But for the rising wind the night was 
very still. Now and then a bark of a pariah dog 
echoed from the neighboring village, or the dis- 
tant yell of a jackal. But there was a silence 
in the night, a silence which might be felt. I 
stepped outside to enjoy the peace and beauty of 
the scene, and, as I did so, the weird hoot of a 
startled owl among the branches made me turn 
my head toward the grove. 

Then I perceived two figures advancing toward 
me out of the deep shadow — two — a man and a 
woman. 

They came nearer out into the patch of moon- 
light, and I gave a gasp of surprise as I recog- 
nized them ; for the man was Jack, my Lily's 


34 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


Jack, and he was walking with a native 
woman. 

I stepped back against the tent and watched 
eagerly, much shocked ; for she was a very beau- 
tiful woman I could see now the moonlight was 
so strong — graceful and lissome in her scanty 
drapery, and — oh, horror! — Jack had his arm 
round her waist, and her head was leaning on his 
shoulder. 

I dropped the curtain of the tent, and stood 
within thunderstruck at what I had seen. Of 
course, I had heard rumors in India of Europe- 
ans taking unto themselves the daughters of the 
heathen; but that Lily’s Jack, so young, so new 
to the country, should pursue such a course so 
openly, and under my very nose, shocked me 
almost as much as if it had been Bob himself. 
What faithlessness! what profligacy! My poor 
Lily ! 

There lay the letter in which I had been prais- 
ing up to the skies this precious young scamp. 
What a mercy it was that I had not sent it — that 
there was yet time to warn her as to the real 
character of the man whom she contemplated 
marrying! I tore up the letter I had written, 
and, with a strange whirl of anger, surprise, and 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE . 35 

distress in my mind, flung myself into bed, and 
soon fell into a troubled sleep. 

How long I had slept I do not know, but I 
was awakened suddenly by the whining of the little 
terrier Nip, who always slept at my feet. Nip 
was standing bolt upright in bed, with his ears 
back, his tail between his legs, and his attitude 
cowering. He was gazing intently at the door of 
the tent, and whining in a queer, frightened man- 
ner. My first thought was of thieves, and I sat 
up promptly and looked in the same direction. 

A second or two later, though the curtains did 
not part, I distinctly saw two figures pass 
through them — one like Jack in English clothes, 
the other a draped native female, whom he 
clasped to him. 

They advanced slowly across the tent, and I 
sat and glared at them. Suddenly, as they came 
nearer, my heart froze within me, for I saw that 
they were headless. 

With one shriek of terror I fell back senseless 
on to my pillow. 

When I came to myself it was broad daylight, 
and I was lying on a long bamboo chair in the 
dining tent. As I opened my eyes, Bob bent 
over me, and a wonderful expression of relief 


3 6 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


crossed his face. I grasped his hand convul- 
sively. 

“Bob!” I cried, “for God’s sake, don’t leave 
me.” 

“I’m not going to, darling; but you must be 
quiet,” and he laid a wet rag on my burning 
brow. 

“But where am I? Why am I not in bed — in 
my tent?” 

“There was a heavy storm in the night after — 
after you were taken ill. The guy ropes gave 
way and the gusts nearly blew the tent down, so 
I carried you in here. Are you feeling better?” 

As he spoke, the memory of the awful vision I 
had witnessed rose up again in all its appalling 
ghastliness, and I suppose I must have looked 
pretty bad again, for Bob forbade me to say an- 
other word. He put on fresh cold applications, 
and the ayah came and fanned me. Under these 
soothing influences my bewildered brain grew 
gradually soothed, and I slept. 

It was a wretched Christmas Day after all, for 
all of us — we who had expected to be so jolly 
together. I dozed all day, afraid to think, not 
allowed to talk, dreading the night with a name- 
less horror. How thankful I was, then, toward 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


37 


evening to find myself being lifted into an ex- 
temporized doolie, and being borne away from 
that awful spot. 

‘‘Where are you taking me, Bob?” I asked 
feebly, for my head was getting bad again. 

‘‘On to the next camp, my darling. We think 
it will be better for you. You’ve got fever 
here.” 

I noticed, in a vague kind of way, there was a 
queer look in his face, very unlike his usual 
expression. He looked rather scared. 

‘‘My head’s bad,” I replied; ‘‘but I’m not very 
ill — don’t be alarmed about me, Bob.” 

I meant to tell him what I had seen, but the 
horror of it again overpowered me, and I closed 
my eyes to shut out the ghastly sight. 

Then the coolies came in and carried me off. 
I don’t remember anything about the march or 
the new camp, for the morning brought on a 
sharp attack of fever, and for many days I 
lay unconscious and delirious. Colonel Rydale 
stayed on to companionize Bob, who was really 
anxious about me, and sent in forty miles for the 
nearest doctor. 

I got better. My brain recovered its equilib- 
rium, and I was able to think with less horror of 




IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


what, but for Nip’s extraordinary behavior, I 
should have thought a bad dream. 

One day I lay languidly in a long chair. We 
were to march on the next morning and re- 
sume our regular routine, and our guests were 
leaving us. They were sitting by me now, and 
I feebly watched the colonel light a cigar. 

“What an odd ring that is on your little 
finger, colonel !” 

He dropped the match as if he had been shot, 
burning a hole in his trousers, and muttering to 
himself for doing so. 

‘‘It’s not native work, is it?” 

‘‘No; French,” he answered shortly. 

‘‘Do let me see it.” 

Rather unwillingly he let me draw his hand 
.down and examine it. 

‘‘I see, it’s one of those French porte-bonheur 
rings, a twist of gold and silver. A keepsake, 
eh, colonel?” and I laughed nervously, for as I 
touched the ring a cold creepy feeling came over 
me, and those two awful figures seemed to float 
before my eyes again. 

‘‘A keepsake? Yes,” he replied shortly, ‘‘it 
belonged to my friend Jack.” 

Here was an opportunity to disburden my 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE. 


39 


mind of its awful secret. Mastering my horror 
with a violent effort, I sat up and spoke. 

“Colonel Rydale,” I said, “I have seen your 
friend Jack.” 

The colonel jumped up amazed. 

“Good God !” he exclaimed. 

“Yes,” I went on, with increasing difficulty, for 
every word I spoke seemed to conjure up the 
vision afresh, “I have seen him twice — on Christ- 
mas Eve — in the mango grove — with a beautiful 
native woman. The first time I thought it was 
Jack Denver — the second time — in the tent — 
Nip woke me, howling — and I saw ” 

I could not go on. I covered my face with 
my hand as if I could blot out the sight, and 
the colonel, very alarmed, mixed me some stiff 
brandy and water. Then he looked at me fix- 
edly. 

“Do you feel stronger? Can you to bear to 
hear something?” 

I nodded assent. 

“We have found him — Jack — the next morn- 
ing, Christmas Day. They were righting your 
tent, which had been blown down, and in digging 
a trench round to carry off the water they came 
upon ” 


40 


IN A HA UN TED GEO VE. 


‘‘Go on,” I muttered. 

“Two skeletons together — headless — the skulls 
detached — chopped off. On the wrist and ankle- 
bones of one were a native woman’s bangles; on 
the little finger of the other this queer ring poor 
Jack used to wear. That’s why we moved you 
off in such a hurry. Hullo! Here, Bob — come, 
quick — your wife has fainted !” 

When I came to, I asked to see the ring again. 
It seemed to have a fascination for me, this link 
between the poor murdered lad of years ago and 
the present. 

“I remember the ring well,” said Colonel Ry- 
dale. ‘‘We used to chaff Jack about wearing it, 
and he always persisted in saying it had been 
given him by a sister, who was dead.” 

“There’s something engraved on the inside,” I 
remarked, twisting the ring round and reading 
aloud, “J-a-c-k, f--r-o-m L-i-l-y B-a-r-n-e-s.” 

Jack Denver, who had not spoken hitherto, 
now jumped up with a start. 

“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, “show it to 
me! That was my mother’s name before she 
married. Yes, I knew she had a brother who 
died in India, but after her death I never saw 
much of her family, and I have never heard any 


IN A HAUNTED GROVE . 


41 


particulars. What a round world it is, to be 
sure ! That poor fellow must have been my 
uncle !” 

Instantly the resemblance between Jack and 
that figure I had seen flashed into my mind, and 
as quickly explained itself satisfactorily. 

Lily and her Jack were married within the 
year, and are as happy as the day is long, but I 
have never had the courage to breathe to her my 
suspicions of her lover on that awful night. 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


The moral of the following tale is most repre- 
hensible, and the only excuse I can offer for 
relating it is the lame one that it happened a 
long while ago. 

We youngsters of the Royal Scilly Islanders 
were rather a wild lot in those days. But our 
wildness chiefly arose out of the intense happi- 
ness we all felt in serving together in that distin- 
guished corps, which we fondly believed was 
equaled by none in the service. Not a very 
humble opinion, to say the least, but one which 
I still hold as strongly as ever. 

I have called ourselves the Scilly Islanders, 
because I have no wish that the reader should 
penetrate the disguise of this veracious history, 
or set about speculating forthwith as to whether 
we wore bonnets or bearskins, rifle green or 
British scarlet. Suffice it that we bore the 
names of a score of glorious victories on our 


42 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 43 

colors. But we were by no means a wealthy lot 
of fellows, or with special fame in racing, cricket, 
etc. (Polo -in those days was played only by the 
natives on the Assam frontier, and had not pene- 
trated to England, or even reached India.) No, 
our great distinction was that we were the Island- 
ers, and that was enough. Promotion was slow, 
for gold (it was in the days of purchase) would 
not tempt fellows to leave, and as for the ranks, 
when short service was, as yet, an unknown 
thing, the men were born and died in the regi- 
ment. 

The epoch to which I am alluding being, of 
course, before the blissful dawn of the Cardwel- 
lian competitive examination era, you could only 
get into the Scilly Islanders by way of a nomina- 
tion from an Exalted Personage, who was hon- 
ored by being our Colonel. How it was, there- 
fore, that Hunks managed to get gazetted to us 
we marveled greatly. We came to the conclusion 
that the paternal Hunks, whose name to this day 
you see on reels of cotton, but fail perhaps to 
recognize as Lord de Hunsby (the de Hunsbys 
came in with the Conqueror, he has found out), 
had lent the Exalted Personage money. 

In any case Hunks’s appearance followed that 


44 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


of his name in the gazette, and he burst upon 
our astonished eyes when we were quartered at 
Punkahpore. He arrived, attended by many 
native servants, who were plundering him freely, 
and brought kit enough for a married man with a 
family, including an English dog-cart, and three 
Arabs he had bought at Bombay for four figures 
(in rupees) each, and who all presently turned 
out unsound. He arrived, and, before dinner 
was half over the first night at mess, he had put 
our dear old Commanding Officer’s back up by 
enlightening him as to how things were done in 
his, Hunks’s, elder brother’s corps, the Green 
Dragoons. 

“As if the Scilly Islanders wasn’t a pattern to 

a dozen of your d d swaggering heavies,” the 

old man muttered fiercely over his night-cap 
“peg” later on. 

Then he dilated, and with a calm assurance 
which was exasperating in the extreme to our 
Major, the younger son of one of the most his- 
toric commoner families in England, on the 
glories of the famille Hunks. He related how 
they had bought up a fine old estate in Wessex, 
and built a palace on the site of the old hall ; and 
how they rented half a Scotch county from sev- 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 45 

eral heads of clans too poor to live on their prop- 
erties. The Major looked him down from head 
to foot, but writhed visibly in his chair. By the 
time the wine was on the table he had informed 
another of us that his mamma, whose pet and 
darling he appeared to be, intended him, after 
he had seen a little soldiering, to marry a well- 
known beauty, the dowerless daughter of a 
pauper peer of high degree. 

“And I don’t think she’ll do badly, by 
George!” quoth Hunks complacently, filling up 
his glass with our best champagne (with which 
he found fault), in blissful ignorance of the fact 
that the Lady Grace to whom he alluded was 
first cousin of the man sitting opposite him. 
But the mess president was down upon him like 
a shot, and informed him that ladies were never 
mentioned by name at the mess of the Scilly 
Islanders. 

But trying to set down Hunks was like trying 
to squash an india-rubber ball; his rebounding 
power was wonderful. (We had christened him 
Buggins, by-the-by, as soon as we heard him 
announce that his name was Marmaduke Alger- 
non de Tracy Hunks.) Nevertheless, we all 
made very fair attempts to succeed in our laud- 


4 6 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


able endeavor. The hot weather was just com- 
ing on, and life was a trifle flat at Punkahpore, 
so Hunks-baiting became the fashionable diver- 
sion among us youngsters. Poor fellow ! what 
a life we led him ! Any thinner skinned person 
must have suffered tortures, but his armor of 
conceit was impenetrable. Nothing could pierce 
that. But we suffered too. The mere contact 
with Hunks made us feel such miserable pau- 
pers, even such of us as were not “deep in the 
banks/’ Little Ruffleby and Dick Derehurst, 
who lived opposite the lordly bungalow where 
Hunks had taken up his abode in solitary gran- 
deur, said they could smell his money across the 
road. Fancy a brass bedstead and English furni- 
ture upholstered in chintz, for a newly-joined 
subaltern, when a camp bedstead in the middle 
of a whitewashed room, surrounded by bullock- 
trunks, was enough furniture for any of us! 

Before many days were over the fiat went 
forth among us that Buggins was to be sup- 
pressed, or we of the Scilly Islanders would 
know the reason why. The seniors winked at 
our little games, loathing the newly-joined one 
as much as we did. We had nimble wits among 
us, and were of an inventive turn of mind. It 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


47 


was Derehurst and Ruffleby who packed up 
Hunks’s entire kit one day when he was at re- 
cruits’ drill, and littered his room with his own 
cards, with “P. P. C.” written on them in the 
corner. I strongly suspect that the Captain, who 
was Lady Grace’s cousin, had a hand in cover- 
ing Hunks’s magnificent gilt mirror with big 
cards, bearing fictitious invitations to Marma- 
duke Algernon de Tracy Buggins, from the 
Grand Lama of Thibet and the Governor-Gen- 
eral downward. Someone else labeled the con- 
tents of his splendid morocco photograph-album 
with every big name in the peerage, and each 
night nearly we drank champagne at Hunks’s 
expense, by fining him a magnum for breaches of 
regimental etiquette, into which we laid traps to 
lead him. 

One evening a few of us detained him late in 
the billiard-room, where he was being initiated 
into pool, while a band of others stole round to 
Buggins’s Castle, as we had painted the name on 
his gate. When our hero at length sought his 
couch, what was his horror to find his washer- 
woman’s donkey securely tied down in the Eng- 
lish brass bedstead, making the apartment unin- 
habitable for the night, much to the delight of 


4-8 HOW WE GOT Rib OF HUttKS. 

the spectators concealed in the veranda, awaiting 
the denouement . We took him out shooting, and 
afforded him the pleasure of shooting a village 
pig and a turkey-buzzard, and of bringing them 
home in triumph as a wild boar and a wild tur- 
key. After a diligent morning’s walking in the 
sun after snipe, over a dried-up jheel , where there 
would be no long bills again for some months, he 
succeeded, when nearly exhausted, in killing a 
hoo-poo. This he ate for lunch, to the delight of 
the entire mess, including the mess-sergeant and 
the waiters, as his first snipe. We sent him sol- 
emnly in state, in his dog-cart, to call on the wife 
of the most influential native of the place, who 
caught Hunks on the threshold of the zenana , 
and would have thrashed him if he dared. We 
put a stuffed cobra into his bed, and slipped a 
dead whipsnake down the back of his collar after 
mess. But all was of no avail. Hunks appeared 
to find himself very comfortable with the Scilly 
Islanders. The fellow was not only a cad, but a 
fool, and did not seem to know when he was 
being bullied. 

The rest of the garrison, smart gunners, dash- 
ing hussars, began to chaff us about “Our Bug- 
gins,” and to hint what an ornament he was to 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS . 49 

our corps. His latest mots, his most recent ex- 
ploit, were retailed with a guffaw even over the 
mess table of the native infantry officers, whom 
we looked upon as not fit to black our shoes. 
We felt we were becoming the laughing-stock of 
the station, that some of our glory was departing 
from us, and all on account of Hunks! 

Things had reached this pass when Captain 
Smylie, one of the smartest men of the regiment, 
returned to duty after a long spell as aide-de- 
camp at Calcutta to a Governor-General who was 
now going home. We were always very proud 
of Smylie. In every way he had been quite the 
neatest thing produced in the way of aides-de- 
camp for some years, and we youngsters espe- 
cially thought a great deal of Smylie’s opinion 
about anything. 

It was a great shock for poor Smylie when he 
returned to the old corps to find Hunks rooted 
in it as if he had joined years ago. I can see 
Smylie now, the first night at dinner, his eyeglass 
fixed in his eye, and his quietest, most urbane 
manner on, carefully dissecting Hunks, and the 
latter absolutely giving himself away. Little 
Ruffleby tumbled off his chair with laughing. 

“We can’t — a — keep that — a — boy,” remarked 


$o HOW WE GOT Rib OF HUNKS. 

Smylie to a select few, late in the evening. “He 
must be returned : not up to — a — sample.” 

We all assured our mentor we had done our 
utmost to rid us of him. 

“He’s a wart on the face of the regiment,” 
Smylie went on. 

“My dear fellow,” put in Derehurst, “you’ve 
not the remotest notion what we’ve suffered 
from him. Only the other day I overheard one 
of the black regiment fellows speaking of us as 
‘Buggins’s Own.’ ” 

Smylie knocked the ashes off the end of his 
cigar with the air of a man who has made up his 
mind. 

“This must be put an end to. He must go. 
I'll see to it.” 

Now we all felt that a man who has spent 
some years at an Indian viceregal court, grap- 
pling with the precedence code and the invita- 
tion list, — and who knows to a T who ought 
to take down whom to dinner, and such-like 
weighty and momentous questions, — was not 
likely to be at a loss how to deal with a Hunks; 
so we went to bed elated. 

Smylie had brought back with him to the regi- 
ment the handsome Arab chargers whereon he 


now we got rid of hunks. 51 

had been wont to figure in gubernatorial proces- 
sions, as well as two or three smart ponies which 
he had used as a means of locomotion on the 
mountain paths of Simla. One of these, Shaitan 
by name (an appellation which will not bear 
translation), was a perfect little fiend. In ap- 
pearance reddish-brown, with white face and 
rolling eye; he was fast and handy, and alto- 
gether delightful when you were once on him. 
But in his stable no one but his groom dare go 
within reach of his wicked hoofs or teeth, and as 
often as not he had to be blind-folded before 
Smylie could mount him. For the Shaitan was 
what is called a man-eater. If handsome is as 
handsome does, never did a pony’s character so 
belie his looks. 

It was one evening after mess; the night was 
dark but sultry, for the hot weather was coming 
on apace, and we lay in . long chairs in the ve- 
randa smoking. Hunks, who was on duty that 
night, was holding forth about the price of some- 
thing or other he possessed, I forget what, and 
Smylie was drawing him out. 

Suddenly the striking of the hour by the sen- 
try at the guard-room in barracks, on a piece of 
iron hung up for the purpose, and which did 


52 HOW WE GO 7 ' RID OF HUNKS. 

duty as clock, rang out into the still night air, 
and reminded our hero that it was time to go 
and take the guard. 

“What a bore!” he exclaimed. “I forgot to 
tell my pony to come for me.” 

“Perhaps he forgot to tell your groom,” re- 
marked Smylie dryly; adding, “I’ve a pony 
here; take that.” 

No one in India ever sets foot to ground if 
he can help it, and the guards were some quar- 
ter of a mile away, so Buggins accepted the offer. 

Smylie shouted for the groom ; there was a 
vicious squeal in the darkness, and we all knew 
he had proffered Hunks the Shaitan. 

The darkness favored Buggins in getting on 
the pony quietly, and, in blissful ignorance of the 
animal he was bestriding, he disappeared out of 
the compound. Smylie called back the groom, 
who was for running behind him, as is the 
custom. 

“Don’t you go with that ‘sahib.’ Let him 
manage the pony himself.” 

We fell to talking again. There was a con- 
sumption of whisky and soda, and we awaited 
Hunks’s return. Time passed. He might have 
taken half a dozen gaurds and have been back by 


HO W WE GOT RID OF HUNKS . 53 

now. What could have happened? Had he for- 
gotten the password and been fired at — for in 
India the sentries were then loaded? 

The trotting of a pony up the drive interrupt- 
ed our conjectures. We all rose up and hailed 
Hunks. 

No answer. The Shaitan trotted up to the 
steps of the veranda. 

We cautiously retired, for there was an evil 
look in his eye. Smylie directed the groom to 
catch hold of his bridle. The pony seemed hot, 
as if he had been ridden hard. But where was 
his rider? 

The groom bent over the little beast, and ex- 
tracted with difficulty something he held be- 
tween his teeth and was shaking savagely. 

Smylie took it into the mess-room, and exam- 
ined it in the light. It was a piece of a scarlet 
mess-jacket. 

In mortal alarm lest the Shaitan should have 
made mincemeat of the unfortunate Buggins, we 
provided ourselves with a lantern, and set off in 
search of him. We had not proceeded far when 
we fell in with him trudging dejectedly along in 
the dust, holding his arm. 

“My cap was brushed off by a branch of a 


54 HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 

tree. I got off to pick it up, and the brute came 
for me, neighing, squealing, biting, kicking. I 
ran for it and got behind a tree, and he’s dodged 
me round it for the last half hour, and I think 
he’s nabbed a bit out of my arm.” 

His crestfallen appearance, and the vision he 
conjured up of hide-and-seek with the Shaitan, 
was too much for most of us. But we found, on 
inspecting him, that the pony had left his mark 
on Hunks, and that the victory remained with 
the quadruped. 

Next morning, when our hero opened his eyes, 
he was surprised to see the regimental doctor 
and Smylie standing by his bed. 

“How do you feel this morning?” asked the 
former. 

“Oh, very fit!” replied Hunks, “except my 
arm’s a little stiff where that beast of a pony’s 
teeth scratched me.” 

The solemnity deepened on the countenance 
of the other two, and they looked at each other. 

“Do you feel at all thirsty?” asked the sur- 
geon again. 

“Not more than usual in the morning,” said 
Hunks. “Last night was a dry night at mess.” 

“Any queer feeling in your throat?” 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS 


55 


“What on earth are you driving at? No, my 
throat’s all right. Yes — no — well, perhaps, a 
little ” (swallowing). 

Another meaning look between Smylie and 
the surgeon. Hunks grew alarmed. 

“What’s up, doctor? Do tell me. Is there 
cholera about?” 

He got quite white, for we had frightened him 
well about cholera. 

“Oh, if it was only cholera ” began Smylie. 

“Hush!” interrupted the surgeon warningly; 
“not a word. Nervousness might bring it on.” 

“For God’s sake, doctor, have done with this 
and tell me what’s the matter,” cried poor 
Hunks, sitting up in bed in an agony. 

“Tut! tut!” said the doctor soothingly. 
“Calm yourself. Drink a little water.” 

Hunks pushed the proffered glass away in a 
rage. 

“D the beastly water! I insist on an 

answer. What’s the matter with me? Will you 
tell me?” 

Smylie looked at the doctor. The doctor 
looked at Smylie, and then both looked from the 
glass of water to Hunks, and shook their heads 
solemnly. 


56 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


“I implore you !” beseeched the victim. “I 
can bear the worst.” 

“Shall I?” asked Smylie of the doctor. 

“Well, perhaps there is no use concealing it 
now ,” replied the latter, glancing at the water. 

“Well, then, my poor fellow,” Smylie went on, 
“I grieve to have to tell you that the Shaitan, 
who bit you last night, has developed this morn- 
ing serious symptoms resembling hydro ” 

“Oh! not hydrophobia,” gasped Hunks. “It’s 
dogs have it, not horses!” 

“In this country, alas ! horses too,” corrected 
the surgeon. “His behavior last night was very 
odd.” 

“Indeed it was!” gasped Hunks, clutching his 
arm. “Oh ! my poor mamma ! What will she 
say? Doctor,” he added, seizing Jones’s hand 
imploringly, “what can you do? Is there noth- 
ing you can recommend? Save me, I implore 
you ! My people will make your fortune if you 
do.” 

Jones shook his head. “I have so little expe- 
rience in a case like this. Your symptoms are 
serious; your throat you feel, your dislike of 
water ” 

“If I were only at home, within reach of good 


HOW WE GOT RID OF HUNKS. 


57 


advice!” Hunks cried in an agony. “Doctor, 
can’t you get me sent home at once?” 

“Your only chance, I should say,” replied 
Jones, as grave as a judge. “If it could be man- 
aged ” 

“It must; it shall be managed,” Hunks con- 
tinued hysterically. “I must be off overland 
immediately. Smylie, there’s a good fellow, I 
implore you, go and see the Colonel for me.” 

“I think I can manage it with a sick certifi- 
cate,” said Jones. “Your case is urgent.” 

And it was managed. The next steamer 
removed Hunks from India’s coral strand, and 
from the Scilly Islanders, never to return. The 
shock had been too much for him and his 
mamma, who never let him out of her sight 
again. 

I do not know if he ever gave Lady Grace the 
honor of refusing him ; but I know, when I saw 
her last, it was at a ball the Scilly Islanders gave 
to the Exalted Personage when she was her 
cousin’s wife. 

Shaitan was alive and kicking for many years 
after Hunks bolted home, but his temper did not 
improve with age. 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


I AM left alone, for the first time in my life. 
It is my birthday, too. I am nineteen to-day. I 
had almost forgotten it with no one near to 
recall it. 

Quite alone, save for the tiny pink blossom of 
a baby dozing in the arms of the ayah in the 
next room. By the bye, he has a birthday to- 
day, too. He is five weeks old ; a little, fragile, 
hot weather baby, yet how much he is to me 
already, and with what a pang I surrendered him 
to the aforesaid ayah ! 

Alone at a hotel in an Indian hill-station ! 
Roger brought me up here, and then had to 
return and grill in the plains. Poor Roger! But 
he has gone through so much hot weather. I 
could grill no longer, and they ordered me away 
as soon as I could move. 

Oh ! the terrible heat ! What a blurred recol- 
lection of suffering and stagnation are the last 
58 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


59 


few months since the furnace life began. It 
makes me shudder to look back upon it. 

Up here the air is like champagne, and life 
seems once more worth living. But my reflec- 
tion in the glass shows me still a very white 
little face. Ah ! what a color I used to have at 
home ! 

Home ! How lonely the very word makes me 
feel. What a long way off home seems ! I 
never felt lonely at home. How could I, when 
there were eight of us, all in a small country vic- 
arage ! How I miss them all ! I should like to 
show baby to the girls. I miss Roger, too. I’ve 
such a sense of safety when he is with me, just 
as I have with father, and we have never been 
separated before. Roger will miss me a little, I 
think. He is gone back to sit in that stifling 
court-house from six in the morning till twelve. 
Then when he returns to a late breakfast, I shall 
not be there to pour out his tea. Afterward, he 
will go to sleep till it grows cool, when he will 
drive down to the racket-court, just as he has 
done for so many hot seasons before he married. 
But he will not miss me as I miss him. I can’t 
go back to my old life. 

We have been married nearly eleven months. 


6o 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


Yet, somehow, Roger always seems to me just as 
he did when I first saw him. Good and kind he 
always is; but so much older, so far wiser, so far 
removed from me. Even at home they never 
thought me the clever one among the girls. 
How inferior I must be to Roger, then ! 

It is just a year since we met. He had run 
home on three months’ privilege leave, thin and 
tanned. 

The first Sunday that he was stopping at the 
Hall and sat in the Hall pew, I remember he 
looked at me all church time, and how uncom- 
fortable he made me feel. Then, after church, 
Harry asked father who the “old fossil” was. 
They had no idea what a great man he is out 
here, a little king ruling a district as big as an 
English county ! 

I’ve sometimes asked Roger what made him 
single me out of all the girls. I am not so tall as 
Lucy, nor anything like so clever as Kate. 

But Roger would never answer. He would 
only smile, and try and stroke my hair smooth. 

Dear mother! I shall never forget how her 
eyes filled with tears when I came up to her 
room that night when Roger had asked me to 
marry him (after the tennis party at the Hall), 


MY WEDDING DA Y. 


61 


to tell her all about it, and ask her what I should 
do. 

How fervently she kissed me. “Indeed, Lily, 
you are a lucky girl! He’s a good man, and 
then an Indian civilian is always worth three 
hundred a year, dead or alive!” 

Three weeks later we were married, and the 
next week I left them all for India. 

I remember I did not think much of mother’s 
words at the time, but when I came out here to 
the big house, the tribe of servants, the horses, 
and the carriages, it was all very nice. If only 
the others could have seen and had a share in all 
my grandeur! We were so poor. It seemed 
almost wrong for me, little Lily, to go driving 
about in a big carriage and pair, while poor, tired 
mother was tramping about the village at home. 

Oh ! how doubly lonely and heartsick it makes 
me to write and think about them all. I feel so 
utterly forlorn. Even Roger gone; Roger, who 
a little while ago seemed almost a stranger. 

As I write, the great Indian full moon streams 
in at the open window, with the never-ceasing 
chirping of the crickets, or the distant baying of 
a pariah-dog. The moon is sailing away placidly 
in a cloudless sapphire sky, above the dusky for- 


62 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


est-clad precipices, and over the deep, dark, silent 
lake. But even she is altered. She can’t be the 
same pale, tremulous moon that used to peep 
into my little room at home ! 

And I am altered, too. It is impossible that I 
can be the same Lily she used to find there. 

What a noise of laughter and talking ! It will 
wake baby. It is the company dispersing from 
the table d'hote. I have had a little dinner alone 
here. I never shall summon up courage to face 
that long tableful of smart women and military- 
looking men, all by myself. It was quite 
enough of an ordeal when Roger was here to 
protect me. I am always shy with strangers, 
and never did the talking at home. 

There! A weak little whine like a kitten’s. 
They did awake baby. I must go to him. 

Since I wrote the above I have been dining 
out all by myself! How very brave of me! 
And my courage has been rewarded by having a 
very pleasant evening. 

It came about in this wise. 

Mrs. Carruthers is the wife of the Commis- 
sioner here. I don’t exactly understand what a 
commissioner is. At home I know he’s some- 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


^3 


thing unpleasant, something to do with taxes. 
Here, I believe, it is the next step above Roger, 
who often talks of the time when he will be a 
Commissioner. 

Anyhow, Mrs. Carruthers is a great lady, and 
rules society. I feel rather afraid of her. The 
Carrutherses are old friends of Roger’s, and he 
introduced them to me one day when we met 
them on the Mall, as I was being carried along in 
my “dandy.” My dandy ! How I sometimes 
long for the boys to see me, when I go forth for 
my evening walk, borne aloft like Guy Fawkes 
on men’s shoulders in an armchair. Wouldn’t 
they laugh ! 

Mrs. Carruthers was very affable. In answer 
to Roger’s apologies she graciously consented to 
forgive my not having called, and hoped I would 
come and dine quietly one evening when I was 
stronger, and left alone. 

I did not dare to get out of the invitation when 
it came. Besides, Mrs. Carrutherses seemed moth- 
erly, and called me “dear.” 

The room was quite full when I went in. I 
wondered what the Carrutherses called dining 
“quietly.” And I had on only a little white 
muslin frock. 


6 4 


MY WEDDING DAY . 


In my character of bride I was taken in by Mr. 
Carruthers. 

I shall be thankful when I have been married a 
year, and have done with all the dull old gentle- 
men at dinner. 

Happily, Mr. Carruthers seemed too hungry 
for conversation. He eats no lunch, after this 
dreadful Anglo-Indian fashion, and is conse- 
quently starved and irritable by eight o’clock. 
So he just introduced me to my neighbor and 
settled down to gobble up his soup. 

Captain Tressinger, a tall man, rather bronzed, 
with a long fair mustache and a pair of bright 
blue eyes, bowed, and looked down at me. 

I don’t remember much about the dinner, 
though I am always trying to remember other 
people’s menus. 

I don’t remember any of Mr. Carruthers’s re- 
marks, all interspersed with Hindoostanee ex- 
presions, which he had to explain. 

I don’t even remember much of what Captain 
Tressinger said. I fancied he did not talk much, 
only looked a great deal. Anyhow, presently I 
found myself chattering away as if I had known 
him for years. At home they always said I was 


MY WEDDING DAY. 65 

a chatterbox when I was not shy. And he 
looked at me so kindly. 

After dinner (how sorry I was when Mrs. Car- 
ruthers nodded at me as the signal to rise) there 
was music. Mr. Carruthers had indigestion, I 
presume, for he went to sleep in a big chair, and 
almost snored. 

The room was very hot, and I was still far 
from strong and felt weary with the unwonted 
excitement. My flushed face suddenly turned 
cold, and the room began going round. I has- 
tily made an excuse to get out into the veranda 
for a gasp of fresh air. Once out, I flung myself 
into the nearest chair, and closed my eyes, feel- 
ing as if I should faint. 

Suddenly, someone bent over me. It was my 
neighbor at dinner, asking if he should call Mrs. 
Carruthers, or get me anything. 

I implored him not to make any fuss, only to 
leave me alone, and closed my eyes again. 

But he did not go away. He took my fan and 
began fanning me gently. In a few minutes I 
felt much better, and said I would go back to the 
drawing-room. But Captain Tressinger would 
not let me, and sat down in a chair by my side. 


66 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


It was a lovely night. The bright moon lit up 
the depths of the lake below, .and the mountains 
all around. I felt too tired for much talking, and 
lying back in the chair, enjoyed the stillness and 
the balmy night air. 

Inside someone sang a song about the “Fair- 
ies.” The refrain — ‘‘And you shall touch with 
your finger tips the ivory gates and the golden,” 
came through the open window to us, and passed 
on into the still night. 

Suddenly Captain Tressinger asked, looking 
down at me : 

“Do you believe in fairyland?” 

I smiled, and answered that of course no 
grown up person does. Then I sighed, and 
added that I used to fervently, and wished I 
could now. 

He looked at me a little curiously, as, some- 
how, I never remember having seen anyone look 
before. 

“I do!” he said in a low voice. 

“What do you mean?” I laughed, at the idea 
of a big man like that believing in fairies. 

Then he explained. 

Somewhere or other he had read that once, 
and once only in our lives, someone leads us to 


MY WEDDING DAY . 


6 7 


the ivory gates and the golden, and puts the key 
into our hands. Once, and once only do the 
gates open for us, and we catch a glimpse of fairy- 
land. Sooner or later all get their glimpse : some 
get a short one, some a long one. But all get a deep 
one once in their lives. To some it comes early, 
to some late ; to some too late, he added sadly. 

There was a silence. 

I did not quite understand what he meant. I 
suppose he noticed it, for he added : 

“You have not had your peep yet, I feel sure. 
But some day you will, and then remember what 
1 told you, will you?” 

Just then there was a stir within. Some of 
the guests were departing, and I rose and went 
in to take leave too. 

I was packed up in my “dandy” and started 
homeward. I had not gone very far when there 
was a clatter of ponies’ hoofs behind me down 
the path, and Captain Tressinger came up and 
asked if he might see me home. 

I was still nervous over my “jampannees,” lest 
in the dark they should stumble in these rocky 
paths and drop me, and I was only too glad not 
to be alone, the moon cast such inky shadows 
under the trees. 


68 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


By the bye, Captain Tressinger talked a good 
deal about the moon as he walked home by the 
side of my “dandy.” He quoted poetry. I am 
rather afraid some of it was Byron. Now, at 
home, we girls never were allowed to read By- 
ron. But it was very pretty. 

I am interrputed in writing this by a caller. 
The servant brings in the card. It is Captain 
Tressinger. Tm so glad. 

I am ashamed to find my poor diary has been 
dropped again. What will Lucy say? She made 
me promise when I went away I would keep a 
diary. 

It dropped in the hot weather when I was so 
ill. But, when I came up to the hills and was 
left quite alone with baby, I took it up again. I 
seemed to need someone to talk to. 

But lately I’ve not been nearly so much alone, 
for I have found a friend whom I can talk to as 
much as I like. 

This is Captain Tressinger, and our friendship 
dates from Mrs. Carruthers’s dinner party. 

He is the first real soldier I have ever known. 
When he’s on duty he appears in uniform. And 


MV WEDDING DAY. 69 

very well he looks in it. (If I were a man I 
should always wear my uniform.) 

He is living in this hotel, and, thanks to him, I 
have summoned up courage to face the table 
d'hote meals again. The tepid food brought me 
in my own sitting room was not nice. Captain 
Tressinger sits next to me, and I don't feel shy. 
All the other gentlemen are very civil and kind. 

This is a strange new life I am leading up in this 
lovely nook in the Himalayas. I am beginning 
to feel quite strong, the air is so cool and keen. 

It is indeed a lovely spot. The lake lies in a 
cup, like the crater of an extinct volcano. All 
around rise steep, wooded precipices covered 
with ilex and cypress and rhododendron, with 
here and there a red blossom left, for in April 
they dyed the mountain-side crimson. 

The lake is green and deep, and sleeps placidly 
under the shadow of jutting crags on one side 
and of the willows on the other. 

It is all more beautiful than anything I ever 
dreamt of. I said one day to Captain Tressinger 
that it was like fairyland. 

He answered that it was fairyland to him . 
He is very kind. Nearly every day he comes 


70 


MY WEDDING DA Y. 


and takes me for a walk. It is very dull to go 
out alone, carried aloft to the music of the “jam- 
pannees’ ” grunts and groans. So I am only too 
glad, with Guy Tressinger as a guide, to lose my- 
self in these beautiful paths, winding in and out, 
among rocks and precipices, through ferny woods 
and by mountain sides, with far-spreading views 
of plains and snows. 

Sometimes in the afternoons, when it is hotter 
than usual, and we feel lazy, we go on the lake. 
We take the Canadian canoe and Guy paddles, 
while I loll on cushions at the other end. Then, 
where the shadows are deepest and coolest under 
Smuggler’s Rock, we generally come to a stand- 
still altogether, and Guy smokes, while I talk, or 
lie and watch the mysterious lights and shadows 
of evening floating over lake and peak. The 
prayer. gong sounds from the Hindoo temple on 
the shore, vespers ring out from St. Mary’s Con- 
vent in the trees, and a chorus of frogs comes up 
from the reeds by the water’s edge. 

One day Guy Tressinger did a fearful thing, 
that almost makes me shudder to write about. 

Far over our heads, on the precipitous cliffs, 
grew a rare fern. I said, heedlessly, how I 
wished I could get it. 


MY WEDDING DA Y. 


71 


Guy said nothing at the time, but after a 
while, when he had finished his cigar, he flung 
away the end, and paddling to shore, tied up the 
boat under a tree. Then, almost before I knew 
what he was about to do, clambered up the 
rocks, hanging on by his hands and toes. 

I got dreadfully frightened; it looked so fear- 
fully dangerous. A single false step might have 
sent him headlong, not into the lake, but to be 
dashed to pieces on the rocks below. I called to 
him as loud as I could to come back, that I did 
not want the fern. But he only turned his head 
with a smile and shouted back that it was all 
right. 

Worse followed. He found he could not reach 
the wretched plant from below, but had to climb 
up above it, and then hanging down head and 
shoulders over the precipice, reach down to it 
with one hand. It was too horrible to see ! I 
fairly screamed aloud and hid my face in my 
hands that I might not see him. 

Presently, I don’t know how soon, he was back 
again by my side, and touched me on the arm, 
holding out the ferns. 

I suppose I looked up with a scared face, for 
he looked distressed. 


72 


MY WEDDING DAY . 


“Did I really frighten you? Oh! I’m so sorry ! 
It was nothing, you know.” 

“Promise me, promise me that you will never 
do anything so dangerous again! I can’t bear 
to see you !” 

He looked at me for a moment, strangely, as 
if about to say something. Then suddenly he 
turned away, sprang into the canoe and seized 
the paddle. 

“It’s getting late and damp for you to be out.” 

His voice sounded forced and husky. 

Then without a word he paddled home fast 
and furiously. But when I got in I was sur- 
prised to find it was not really so very late after 
all. 

Ten days have passed since I wrote in my 
diary. Only ten days — and yet what a change 
they have brought ! 

All, all is altered ! The veil is torn from my 
eyes, the illusion over. I see now the precipice 
that yawned at my feet. 

No longer am I the light-hearted, innocent 
girl, but a woman, a hundred years older. A 
miserable, conscience-stricken woman. 

Now I see plainly how Guy Tressinger loves 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


73 


me; and I — with shame let me confess it — I 
know that in my heart of hearts I love him as I 
never dreamed I could love anyone. 

With him I am happy. Without him, I am 
restless and wretched till he comes again. My 
life seems to hinge on him, to consist in his pres- 
ence, in hearing his voice. 

I look back to before I knew him. I see now 
how starved, and cold, and loveless my existence 
was. I look forward with despair to a future in 
which he cannot, may not, find a place. 

All this I feel to be wrong — dreadfully, des- 
perately wrong! But I can’t help it. 

It has overmastered me, overpowered me. I 
know it is love ! 

What have I done that I should be so happy 
and yet so miserable? that I should taste this 
bitter-sweet — this pleasurable pain? 

For the last few weeks I have been living in a 
fool’s paradise. It was fairyland, the fairyland 
of which -Guy spoke that evening when first 
we met. He has given me the key. He has 
opened for me ‘‘the ivory gates and the golden.” 

And this one short glimpse of fairyland has 
changed all the world to me. Who can come 
back from such a golden vision and view the 


u 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


commonplace earth with the same eyes again? 
Oh! why did I ever go in? And yet I hug to 
my heart the peep I have had ! 

This is how I awoke out of my dream. 

There was a big ball at the Assembly Rooms 
by the lake, to which I was persuaded to go. 
The Carrutherses said it was the ball of the sea- 
son, and that I ought to go if only for once. 

Then a great wish came over me for a dance 
and to wear a certain new ball-dress that had 
never even been unpacked. 

Lastly, one day, Guy begged me, with that 
strange, imploring look of his, which now, alas! 
I understand so well, to go to please him. 

I had never in my life been but to one big 
ball, and that was the Hunt Ball. It had seemed 
to me gorgeous, inasmuch as the gentlemen wore 
pink. Imagine then, what I thought as I en- 
tered the Bachelors’ Ball and found nearly all the 
male portion in uniform, including fat old Mr. 
Carruthers, in a nondescript coat with brass but- 
tons they told me was something political. 

In the gallery a scarlet and gold Lancer band 
discoursed soul-stirring waltzes. My dress was 
pretty; I felt young and strong. I knew I could 
dance; partners crowded round. At my elbow 


MY WEDDING DAY . 


75 


was Guy Tressinger begging for as many dances 
as I would give him, and then — oh, intoxicating 
bliss ! whirling me off in his arms into fairyland. 

What wonder if I lost my head ! I was only 
mortal, and it was fairyland. 

Then came the awakening. 

We, Guy and I, were sitting in the dim veran- 
da overlooking the lake. There was no moon, 
only stars. All was dark and mysterious. The 
sound of the music mingled with the night 
breeze in the trees and the lap of the water 
against the building. 

They were playing “Mia Cara.” Ah, me! 
those melancholy, deep, low notes will haunt me 
to my dying day. 

We had the corner all to ourselves, no one 
within earshot. I do not know how long we had 
been there. Guy had been talking rather hur- 
riedly and excitedly. His face was close enough 
in the dark for me to see how flushed it was, how 
brightly his eyes shone, and how fiercely he 
tugged at his mustache. 

There was a silence. 

Even I, the chatterbox, was silent. I was 
with him. I was happy — too happy for words. 

Something made me afraid to break the 


76 


MY WEDDING DA Y. 


silence. I felt as if I were treading on a volcano 
which might burst under me at any moment. It 
was like a lull before a storm ; as if the air were 
hot and stifling, the thunder rumbling, and in 
another moment the torrent of passionate words 
must fall. 

I suppose an older, wiser woman than I, with 
more knowledge of the world, would have 
stopped him. But I was only a child, and unwit- 
tingly my heart was all his. 

Then it came. 

“Tell me, why were you so frightened the 
other day when I climbed up Smuggler’s Rock?” 
He asked it earnestly, and his eyes asked it too. 

“I frightened? Oh! I — I was afraid — it was 
very silly — afraid you would fall and be — hurt 
yourself.” I could not say killed. 

“Did you care? Would you have cared if I 
had?” he continued incoherently. His hand 
stole nearer mine, took my fan from me, and 
played with it nervously. 

I looked up. I do not know what answer I 
meant to give. But I met his eyes. They 
seemed to burn me through, and I never an- 
swered anything. There was no need for words. 

Then I let my head droop, my heart beating 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


77 


like a sledge hammer, so that I could scarcely 
breathe. 

“I’m going away soon,” he went on, after a 
pause, hurriedly and hoarsely. He bent down 
over me, his breath fanned my cheek. 

“My time at the depot will be up very soon, 
you know, very soon now. My peep into fairy- 
land is over — our peep — may I say our peep?” 
He seized my hand. 

“Lily, say you’re sorry. Oh! say you’ll miss 
me!” 

I looked up and it was a moment before I 
grasped his meaning. Going away ! 

“No, no, I can’t have you go!” 

It broke from me unawares, and then, over- 
strung, I covered my face with my hands, and 
burst into hysterical tears. 

The grasp on my hand tightened till it hurt 
me. Just then the music ceased and couples of 
dancers came streaming into the veranda. 

Guy rose, and leaning over the railing, stood 
there looking down into the dark lake. 

I fancied I heard a groan. 

Then a feeling of horror got possession of me. 
I felt afraid of myself, afraid of him, like a hunted 
creature brought to bay. Mastering myself with 


78 MY WEDDING DAY. 

a violent effort, I rose quickly and left the 
spot. 

At the door of the brilliantly lighted ball- 
room, I found Mr. Carruthers, for a wonder, wide 
awake at this hour. 

“I’ve got such a headache. Would you be so 
kind as to get my ‘dandy’ for me? I must go 
home.’’ 

Happily, Mr. Carruthers is very short-sighted. 
I felt thankful for it. It was but a short dis- 
tance back to the hotel, but the maddening 
waltzes rang through my fevered brain all the 
way. 

I went up to my room, and pulled aside the 
curtain that separated it from baby’s. Then I 
let it fall again. 

No! I felt I could not face that little inno- 
cent, with my guilty secret weighing on my soul. 

I paced the room restlessly, full of conflicting 
doubts and fears and self-reproaches. 

Then I took off my ball-dress, and pulled the 
flowers off my head and bosom. 

Oh ! that wretched ball ; why did I ever go to 
it? 

The room seemed to stifle me. I flung open 
the window and sat down at my writing-table. 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


79 


The night breezes cooled my fevered head. Al- 
most mechanically, as it were, from the need of 
confessing to someone, I began to write my diary. 

It has done me good. It has calmed me, 
though I feel as heartsick, as despairing, as 
before. 

A faint glow of dawn is perceptible in the air. 
A cawing of half-awakened crows comes in at the 
window. 

Another day has begun. The beginning of a 
life all changed for me. Suddenly with a start I 
recollect it is the anniversary of my wedding day. 

I have come across the above sheets of an 
almost forgotten diary, kept years ago when I 
first came to India. 

The chapter of my life to which they refer is 
closed forever. The wounds are healed if the 
scars remain. So I will now finish the story of 
my wedding day. 

Since then we have had many anniversaries of 
our wedding day, but none, thank God, like the 
first. Roger and I are stanch friends, if lovers 
we have never been, and have weathered to- 
gether many blazing hot weathers and drenching 


monsoons. 


8o 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


Our children are growing up around us. The 
little white cross, underneath which sleeps my 
little lost darling among the everlasting hills, was 
all moss-grown and ancient looking when last I 
visited it. 

As I write the agony of that loss comes well- 
ing up as if it were yesterday. 

But time softens all. I had my glimpse into 
fairyland, the fairyland of love, hand in hand 
with Guy Tressinger, years ago. It is all over 
now, only the memory comes back to me with 
the “pain that is all but a pleasure.” 

But to go back to my wedding day. 

Worn out with weeping and despair I fell into 
a deep, heavy sleep when day broke. From this 
I was soon awakened. 

The ayah was standing over me, begging me 
to come quickly to baby, who was very ill. 

In an instant I was by his cot, dazed and ter- 
rified. 

There was no doubt of it. His wee face was 
blue and drawn. His tiny hands were tightly 
clenched with the thumb turned inward, while 
his little limbs twitched convulsively. 

Even at this distance of time certain events of 
that long weary day stand out as distinctly as if 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


81 


it were yesterday, while the whole day is one 
long blue of agony, almost still too painful for 
me to describe in detail. It was a succession of 
hopes and fears. I hardly realized anything or 
felt real myself. I seemed a third person look- 
ing on at myself and baby. 

At last, after what seemed an age of waiting, 
the doctor came. He looked very grave, and 
asked all manner of questions, which I answered 
as best I might. Then he gave his opinion. 

“I’m afraid you won’t save him.” 

He was only a young fellow, of the Army 
Medical Department. 

He had never known heartache in his life. I 
am sure he did not in the least realize how his 
words fell like lead on my heart numbed with grief. 

Then he offered to telegraph to Roger, adding 
he was afraid he would not get here in time. I 
let him do it, knowing all the while, though I 
hardly had the power to think, that it was quite 
impossible for Roger to get away at all. 

Some time in the middle of the day (I did not 
keep count of hours) I was roused, as I sat by 
baby’s cradle, from a stupor almost as great as 
that into which he had fallen, by Guy Tressin- 
ger’s voice in the veranda, inquiring after me. 


82 


MY WEDDING DAY. 

My heart gave a great bound. Here, at least, 
*was a friend ; someone to cling to in this great, 
overwhelming trouble. 

But my next thought was one of horror. No, 
no. I would not, could not see him while Rog- 
er’s baby — our baby — lay a-dying. It would be 
adding to my guilt. Was not, perhaps, this blow a 
punishment foj having thought too much of him? 

I rocked myself to and fro in my lonely grief 
over my darling’s bed, putting Guy out of my 
thoughts. 

When the doctor came again there was a slight 
rally. The fits ceased for a time. Still his face 
looked gray and drawn. You might have said a 
wax doll was lying there ; you could hardly see 
his breathing. 

Guy called again, and yet again, as the weary 
afternoon dragged on and the sun shone low in 
the veranda. The hotel was astir with people 
going for their evening walks and rides. 

Then he sent in a note : 

“My heart aches for you. Only tell me what 
I can do to help you. 

“Yours ever, 


“G. T 


My wedding day. £3 

Even while I was gazing at the note, a cry 
from the ayah drew my attention to the boy. 

Alas ! another convulsion had set in. His 
little face and limbs were twitching again. 
When the doctor returned half an hour later, in 
tennis flannels, his bat under his arm, baby was 
quiet again, but he said another fit like that 
would carry him off. 

The sun set. The short twilight came on. 
The room grew dark. Night fell — an inky, dark, 
moonless night. 

With it came suddenly a great horror of loneli- 
ness, with a longing for mother, such as I had 
not felt since I was a child, and I awoke up in a 
fright in the dark and wanted comfort. 

I could not cry. I had not shed a tear all day. 

I sat there alone in the darkened room, wailing 
“Mother, mother!” 

Oh, if she could have only heard ! How she 
would have hurried to me, and suffered with me. 

Baby lay in a state of coma. At times I 
thought him dead. I had to strain my ear so as 
to catch his breathing. I do not know how the 
time passed. They brought lights, they offered 
me food. I neither stirred nor answered. 

Suddenly there was a sound of a man’s foot- 


s 4 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


steps clanking down the veranda. There was an 
altercation of voices outside, and then the curtain 
across the door was pushed aside, and Guy 
Tressinger entered in uniform. 

“I have to go round the guards, past the tele- 
graph office. Can I do anything for you?” 

He stood hesitating in the doorway, and 
looked beseechingly at me. 

The sound of his voice aroused me. I looked 
up. I met those eyes, which always influenced 
me so strangely, and they broke the spell. 

I rose, and rushing toward him hid my face 
on his shoulder, and burst into wild, passionate 
weeping. 

Even now I can feel his arms around me, and 
his hot kisses on my cheek as he murmured : 

“My darling, my poor darling!” 

There was a sound of approaching footsteps. 
He pushed me gently away. The doctor en- 
tered, and went over to baby’s bed. I followed, 
and I think Guy left the room. 

Baby was in another convulsion, worse than 
any of the preceding attacks. The doctor shook 
his head, and tried to get a few drops of medi- 
cine inside the tightly clenched little mouth. 
Then he shook his head again. 


MY WEDDING DA Y. 


85 


“I can do no more.” 

I bent over the cot and took baby up in my 
arms. I felt I would like to feel him there as 
long as I could. Poor mite! His wide, blue 
eyes rolled back and became fixed. 

The doctor went and looked out into the dark 
night. 

How time passed I know not. I seemed 
stunned. 

Suddenly there was a great commotion out- 
side, a running down the veranda, a calling for 
the doctor. He went out, saying he would 
return directly. 

I caught what they said to him outside. 

“You're wanted at once, doctor. There’s been 
an accident. Tressinger’s fallen over the preci- 
pice. He was galloping wildly to the guard- 
room and his pony shied with him, and they both 
went over. A fatigue party has turned out to 
look for him. Come at once.” 

He looked in at the door, and must have seen 
from my face that I had heard all. 

I motioned him away. 

“Go, go at once! Don’t delay!” 

And then I bent over my baby, praying as 
never in my life I had prayed before, not that he 


86 


MY WEDDING DAY. 


might be spared, but that I might be taken with 
him. 

There was a long, long interval of silence and 
solitude. 

Baby was quiet and still ; such a feather-weight 
on my arm. 

I heard a distant clock strike midnight, an owl 
screech, and a pack of jackals fill the night with 
their unearthly music, before the doctor re- 
turned. 

When he did so, his face was white and set, 
and he seemed afraid to meet my eye. 

I looked up at him. 

There must have been command as well as 
entreaty in my face. 

“Tell me,” I asked in a harsh, hoarse voice, 
which sounded to me as if someone else was 
speaking. 

He hesitated a moment. 

“Captain Tressinger has met " 

“Tell me," I repeated. 

His head drooped : 

“He must have been killed instantly!" 

Then he came across and bent over baby. 

“Let me take him from you now. He does 
not need you any more." 


MRS. CARAMEL’S BOW-WOW. 


Rightly or wrongly, people talked a good 
deal at the time, more even than people gener- 
ally do talk in an Indian hill-station, which is 
saying a good deal. Mrs. Caramel was young, 
pretty, and attractive. She had met Herbert 
Aynsley one cold season at Punkahpore, and he 
had been much smitten. Then the following hot 
weather she had gone up to the hills alone for 
six months, to escape the heat, and he had taken 
leave and followed her thither. Up at that 
naughty little nook Nimree, among the rhodo- 
dendrons and under the shadow of the mighty 
mountains, they were always together; for Mrs. 
Caramel found her own society unendurable. At 
the balls, after dancing eight or ten dances to- 
gether, Aynsley would take her down to supper, 
and afterward escort her home, under the stars, 
to her chalet-like cottage among the crags, where 
anyone calling always found him hanging about 
87 


88 


MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-WOW. 


very much at home. Then they were met in the 
twilight returning from long rides together, their 
ponies being led behind them while he helped 
her down the steep places. Long sunny after- 
noons he sculled her about the lake, and the 
great full Indian moon would beam down upon 
them idling about in canoes. Finally, it became 
an understood thing that neither would go to any 
dinner or picnic in which the other was not in- 
cluded, and that a seat must always be reserved 
for him everywhere next to her. To use the 
common Anglo-Indian slang, in short, Aynsley 
was acknowledged as Mrs. Caramel’s “bow-wow.” 

Of course it was all a great pity, and Mrs. 
Caramel was very silly. But Herbert Aynsley 
was a good-looking young fellow, smarter and 
better groomed than the average competition- 
wallah. On the other hand, Colonel Caramel 
was fat and stupid, and years older than his wife. 
He did not seem to mind, if indeed he noticed, 
what was on everyone’s tongue. One’s own 
affairs are often more one’s neighbor’s business 
than one’s own. 

However, this had taken place some years ago, 
and now they were all at home. The Caramels 
had retired from the service. The Colonel had 


MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-WOW . 89 

come into a little money, and had developed 
gouty tendencies; and they had settled down in 
a small house in Wessex, which had been left 
them with the property. 

But the Herbert Aynsley friendship had not 
waned. As long as they were in India, though 
often widely separated by the exigencies of their 
respective services, he had generally contrived to 
get up to the hills for a little to Mrs. Caramel in 
summer, and to run over and see her at Christ- 
mas, or for an odd week now and again. It was 
quite an old story now, and people generally 
accepted it, as they do accept such friendship in 
the easy-going East. Aynsley was now home on 
sick-leave, and of course staying down in Wessex 
with the Caramels. But there was another 
reason for his being there besides his old pen- 
chant for Mrs. Caramel. This latter had grown 
decidedly stout ; also she had lost some of her 
good looks, and presented the washed-out ap- 
pearance of Anglo-Indian beauties when viewed 
in contrast with their fresher English sisters. 
Aynsley was getting a little tired of her. Then 
the doctors had told him he ought not to go 
back to India again ; but alas ! he was over- 
whelmed with debts, the result of years of ex- 


90 MRS. CARAMEL’S BOW-WOW. 

travagance. What was to be done? Mrs. Cara- 
mel was fully alive to the state of affairs. Like a 
wise woman, she seized the bull by the horns, 
and determined to get him married. Like the 
true friend she was, with the utmost devotion 
she discovered an heiress for him. 

The McKinlays, widow and only daughter, 
lived at the big house, Ashleigh Manor, only a 
stone’s throw from the Caramels’ little place. 
Old McKinlay had made a large fortune in busi- 
ness, bought the property, and then died. His 
only surviving child was Caroline, aged nineteen 
— just the girl Mrs. Caramel wanted to get hold 
of for Aynsley. She was a thoroughly good girl, 
this Caroline McKinlay; very strictly brought 
up, and gentle and loving. She would make him 
a harmless, commonplace sort of wife. Then she 
had £ 8000 a year. A further advantage was 
that she was decidedly plain, with sandy hair, 
pale eyes, and a bad complexion — not at all the 
sort of girl to exercise much influence over a 
man like Aynsley ; and Mrs. Caramel was not in 
the least afraid of his getting too fond of her. 
Her mother was a tall, angular, sharp-featured 
Scotchwoman, who had married McKinlay in his 
early, obscure days, and had not and never would 


MRS. CARAMELS BOIV-WOW. 91 

accommodate herself entirely to her improved 
position. She was a strong Presbyterian, and 
took an austere view of life; but in deference to 
her position as mistress of Ashleigh Manor, she 
condescended on Sundays to occupy the great 
square pew in the village church which went with 
the big house.- 

Aynsley’s suit had progressed charmingly. 
All that beautiful month of August he had laid 
siege to the heiress’s heart. He was to her as a 
god descended from Olympus ; she had met very 
few men, and none to be compared to him. In 
the meantime, Mrs. Caramel, with her honeyed 
little ways, had quite captivated the mamma. 
In fact, she had obtained so much influence over 
that lady, who imagined her the “glass of fashion 
and the mold of form,” that she had actually 
persuaded her to issue invitations for a grand 
garden party (dances Mrs. McKinlay deemed a 
snare of the Evil One), to commemorate Caro- 
line’s nineteenth birthday, when the house 
should be thrown open for the first time since 
the old man’s death. At this party, Mrs. Cara- 
mel intended that Aynsley should lay the cop- 
ingstone on her plans by proposing to the heiress. 

The evening before this great event Mrs. Cara- 


92 MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-WOW. 

mel sat on her little lawn, after tennis was over, 
dispensing tea, or rather brandy and soda, and 
good advice simultaneously, to Aynsley, who lay 
on his back on the grass, looking very handsome 
in his flannels, and contemplating lazily the little 
spiral curls of smoke he puffed up into the air. 

“You’re really very lazy to-night, Bertie,” she 
remarked from the depths of a low basket chair. 
“I’m sure you’re not attending even to what I 
am saying to you. You must really make up 
your mind — that is, if you have any to make up, 
which I almost begin to doubt — as to when you 
are going to do it. Is it to be when you give 
her the bouquet (it will be down from Covent 
Garden the first thing to-morrow morning), or 
shall it come off in the evening, after everyone 
has left? I could bring her into the garden and 
make an opportunity for you. Now tell me, 
what am I to do?” 

“I really don’t know, and I’m sure I don’t 
care,” drawled Herbert. “By Jove! it’s really 
an awful thought that by this time to-morrow a 
fellow may not be his own master any longer! 
And then there’s that old canting hag of a 
mother, too ! I shall belong half to her, I sup- 
pose.” 


MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-IVOW. 93 

“Really, Herbert, you're very exasperating 
to-night,” pouted Mrs. Caramel. “Here am I 
arranging all this for you, and you are too lazy 
even to decide, much less to say ‘thank you.’ 
Why, I suppose,” she sighed, “you never even give 
me a thought in the matter. Perhaps this is the 
last evening I shall even be allowed to call you 
‘Bertie,’ for instance, after all these years.” And 
her handkerchief went up to her pretty blue eyes. 

“Come, come, little woman,” said Herbert 
soothingly, rousing himself as he spoke. “That’s 
all nonsense, you know. We shall always be 
the same to each other whatever happens; you 
know that. Come along, and let’s have a row on 
the river before dinner.” And he put his arm in 
hers and led her away. 

The next day was the garden-party. A bright 
afternoon, and the place looked its best. Not so 
Caroline McKinlay, tortured with hopes and fears 
as to Aynsley’s intentions; and then, as Mrs. 
Caramel charitably remarked, she never looked 
well in white. There were tennis-nets on the 
lawn, the Militia band under the trees. Tents 
with refreshments and little umbrella-tents were 
dotted about picturesquely. The flower-garden 
was a blaze of color, ditto the toilettes of the 


96 MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-WOW. 

fly from the neighboring town. As Mrs. Cara- 
mel drives off she casts an admiring glance at the 
stately old pile and the finely timbered park. 

“Dear fellow! It will be very nice to have 
him settled so near. It’s a nice place, and they 
shall give a big ball.” 

Herbert Aynsley and Caroline McKinlay are 
strolling up and down the Beech Walk, out of 
earshot of the servants who are clearing the tents 
and taking down the nets. It is already dusk 
under the trees; but he can mark her pale cheeks 
crimson and her head bend lower and lower as he 
pours into her ears those sweet words of love 
which she now hears for the first time, and which 
are so familiar to him from long practice. At 
the end of the walk he stops, bends over her, and 
takes her unresisting hand. His arm steals 
round her waist. 

“Caroline! — may I call you Caroline? — say you 
care for me! Say you will be my wife?” 

He looks so handsome; those dark eyes of his 
pierce her very soul. For all answer she lets her 
head fall on his shoulder, and, as he kisses her, 
love transfigures her face and makes her almost 
pretty. Then she frees herself and runs away 
from him, into the shadow and so up to the 


MRS. CARAMEL’S BOPV-tVOiV. 97 

house, and hides herself in her own room — the 
happiest girl in England. 

Aynsley lights a cigar deliberately and strolls 
back leisurely across the darkening park to re- 
port himself to Mrs. Caramel. In the avenue a 
carriage passes him. It contains Mrs. Crabtree, 
who has been detained awhile by her hostess. 

“I want a few words wi’ ye privately,” had 
pleaded Mrs. McKinlay, leading her into the 
large library, which was furnished, as was all the 
house, by some eminent London upholsterer. 
The walls were lined with books in fine calf bind- 
ings, books which had never been opened, while 
busts of unknown celebrities stood sentinel in the 
corner. 

“I saw ye speaking wi’ that Mr. Aynsley,” con- 
tinued Mrs. McKinlay, standing erect before her 
visitor, her hands tightly clasped, and her face 
wearing an anxious look, while her native Doric 
came out strong. “For pity’s sake tell me if ye 
ken anything wrong about him, for he’s after my 
bairn.” 

Thus adjured, and nothing loath, Mrs. Crabtree 
opens the flood-gates of her store of gossip and 
scandal, adding notes and comments and em- 
broideries various. It was dusk before her re- 


9 ^ MRS. CARAMEL’S BOW-WOW . 

cital was ended, and she drove off in a benign 
frame of mind, with a sense of having done her 
duty, leaving her hostess rocking herself to and 
fro in her grief in the dark library. 

A few hours later she stands with arms folded 
and lips pursed by her daughter’s bedside. “Has 
he spake to ye, chield?” she asks sternly. 

Caroline from her pillows confesses he has 
spoken, but does not think it necessary to men- 
tion the kiss. 

“Weel, then, I tell ye that he’s a verra bad 
young man. We’ve been cherishing vipers in 
our bosom, and ye’d better think no more about 
him, for ye shall never set eyes on him agin!” 

Next morning, when Aynsley walks over to 
the Manor, for the first time he is denied admit- 
tance, and cannot catch a glimpse of either 
mother or daughter. Hardly has he returned, 
and is discussing with his fellow-conspirator what 
this may mean, than a letter is brought him, as 
he is sitting in Mrs. Caramel’s pretty little morn- 
ing-room. Aynsley reads the letter, blurts out 
an oath, and tossing it over to Mrs. Caramel, 
stalks lugubriously out of the French window, 
with his hands in his pockets. This is the 
letter : 


MRS. CARAMEL'S BOW-WOW. 99 

“Sir: From inquiries I have made respecting 
your character, I must beg to decline, on my 
daughter’s behalf, as her parent and guardian, 
the offer of marriage you have made her, and beg 
that all acquaintance between us cease from this 
out. 

“ Yours faithfully, 

“Janet McKinlay.” 

In her anxiety not to be misunderstood, the 
poor woman had sat up half the night writing 
and re-writing this epistle. 

Mrs. Caramel flew into the garden after the 
rejected one. She laid her hand on his shoulder. 
“O Bertie!” she began. 

He shrank from her with a scowl. “Damn 
you!” he muttered. “If it had not been for my 
fooling with you this wouldn’t have happened. 
What the devil am I to do now, I should like to 
know?” And he turned away from her. 

That afternoon he packed his portmanteau 
and took the train to town, and Mrs. Caramel 
has never seen him or heard from him since. 

Aynsley’s leave was just up and he had to 
return to India or starve. On his arrival he 
found himself posted to that delightful station 


100 


MRS. CARAMEL'S E0 W- IV 0 W. 


Guramghur, a dull little hole blest with a feverish 
reputation, and where his social charms were 
quite thrown away, as there was not a lady in 
the place. 

Down in Wessex, Caroline, a few years after, 
marries the very High Church curate; and when 
she has a thought to spare from him and her 
many babies, can think of Aynsley without even 
a sigh. 

But the doors of Ashleigh Manor are closed 
forever to Mrs. Caramel, and she finds the neigh- 
borhood looks shyly upon her (for we are noth- 
ing if not respectable down in Wessex); and old 
Caramel’s temper is often very bad with the 
gout. 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


“I’m sure it’s true! I saw the names in the 
list of passengers by the Hydaspes , and the old 
bearer told my ayah that there was a ‘mem- 
sahib’ coming.” 

Mrs. Commissioner de Forret and Mrs. Gen- 
eral Gupper were discussing in the ladies’ read- 
ing-room of the club at the Indian station of 
Noluck the surprising intelligence that was elec- 
trifying the community. 

There was no longer any doubt about it. Mr. 
Hurrell, the judge, who had gone home to Eng- 
land on three months’ privilege leave, was return- 
ing with a wife. It was astonishing, incredible! 

Let the European reader at once dissociate 
any idea of the venerable majesty of the law with 
an Indian judge. Specimens are to be found as 
young as briefless barristers nearer the shadow 
of the Law Courts. One has obtained undying 
fame as a polo-player, and another as a pig- 


IOI 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


102 

sticker. Mr. Hurrell emulated none of these. 
His outward man was of uncertain age, heavy- 
looking and plain. But the society of the South- 
Eastern Provinces, in the commission of which 
he was, cherished him as one of her brightest 
ornaments. As a wit and a raconteur he was 
sought for at every big and little dinner. No- 
luck, which had now rejoiced in the light of his 
countenance for some months, was — especially 
the female part of it — in despair. 

Not that any of the unattached had ever in 
their wildest dreams aspired to marrying him. 
No one ever could associate Mr. Hurrell and 
marriage together. But of flirting capabilities 
there was no end. 

There was mourning in the messes and clubs — 
Hurrell was such good company. Both sexes 
sighed for the snug little dinners (such cooking, 
such stories !) which would now be things of the 
past. 

They arrived (yes, it was they, beyond a 
doubt), and the following day she loomed, large 
and fair and placid, upon the horizon of the No- 
luck world, driving up the Mall in the judicial ba- 
rouche, with red-turbaned grooms armed with yak’s 
tails whisking the flies off her golden tresses. 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


103 


Two days later Mr. Hurrell took her round, 
calling, after the good old Indian custom, in the 
very heat of the day, between twelve and two. 
Society was instantly divided in its opinions 
about her. The women were captivated by her 
new clothes. (“Paris, you may be quite sure,” said 
Mrs. General Gupper, whose frocks were all 
made by a cross-legged tailor in the veranda.) 
The men, on the other hand, were taken with 
this beautiful, calm, Juno-like creature, with ex- 
quisite complexion, and speaking eyes, languish- 
ing under half-lowered lids. And such a neck 
and shoulders ! 

“Only much too much of a good thing, I 
should say,” sneered Mrs. Commissioner de For- 
ret, after a big dinner she had given in the 
Hurrell’s honor, and on whom the Indian climate 
has a disintegrating effect. 

But as the men predominated over the other 
sex in Noluck — as, -indeed, they do everywhere 
in Indian society — Mrs. Hurrell had a success, 
especially among the younger men, who, as a rule, 
like well-ripened charms. 

Another point in her favor, and which went far 
toward disarming the women, was the discovery 
that Mr. Hurrell was in nowise deteriorated by 


104 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


marriage. His wings were not in the least 
clipped — in fact, he soared to flights as brilliant 
as before, or more so. The little dinners were 
resumed. His fair friends found themselves as 
welcome as ever, while all the world was chuck- 
ling over the last new funny story that Hurrell 
had brought out from home. 

Of course, as regarded Hurrell, all this was ad- 
mired and applauded. With the usual immu- 
nity of his sex, he might commit larceny over 
any quantity of quadrupeds. But woe betide 
madame if the Mrs. Grundys, the self-consti- 
tuted lord chamberlains and guardians of the 
morals of Noluck, had found her even hovering 
near the stable gate. 

But no fear. Mrs. Hurrell, with exquisite sea- 
manship, trimmed her sails precisely so as to 
float as near the wind as possible, and yet so as 
not to raise the faintest breeze which might flut- 
ter the dovecots of Noluck. If there is anything 
in the old proverb about safety in numbers, Mrs. 
Hurrell was as safe as a church. But then a 
pretty woman has no difficulty about numbers in 
India, which is always the flirts’ happy hunting 
ground. 

But as the merry month of May drew near 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


105 * 


apace, Noluck (in the physical meaning of the 
word alone, be it quite understood) grew too hot 
for her. Houses were being taken in the hills, 
the feminine portion of the European population 
was packing up, and men’s thoughts turned to 
the slaying of pigs, and of leave home. 

Naturally Mr. Hurrell was entitled to no leave; 
his thoughts ran on club hot-weather whist. But 
a man would have been a brute who should con- 
demn a complexion like Mrs. Hurrell’s to the 
shriveling effects of the hot weather. Mrs. Hur- 
rell went to the hills. 

There must be something very enervating, mor- 
ally as well as physically, to the European con- 
stitution in the atmosphere of that naughty little 
nook among the rhododendrons, Simree. A few 
hundred English men and women, with mostly 
nothing to do, are crowded together over a few 
square miles of mountain side for weeks on end 
as on a large ship — and we all know who it is 
who then sets to work, chuckling, to provide 
mischief for the idlers. But perhaps, if Mephis- 
topheles were to run up thither for a few days 
from the Lyceum, he would return with a melan- 
choly arching of his eyebrows and declare the 
place too bad for him. 


• 106 the tables turned . 

When Philip Avebury, a subaltern of the 
Dumbartonshire Regiment, was sent up to Sim- 
ree, on two months’ leave, after a bad attack of 
fever, his evil star led him to put up at the High- 
cliffe Hotel. This was the very headquarters of 
all the fun and the racket and the noisiness and 
the naughtiness of Simree — in fact, it had been 
honored with a little stanza all to itself by the 
local Bunthorne when the Amateur Dramatic 
Company put “Patience” on the boards. It ran 
thus : 

A Highcliffe Hotel young man, 

A kiss-and -don’t tell young man, 

A take ’em to Morrison’s and feed 'em on bonbons, 

A do-himself-well young man. 

Philip Avebury was a dark-eyed, melancholy 
youth of pensive appearance and slightly artistic 
tendencies, and with plenty of money and good 
prospects. He posed as the interesting invalid. 
As such, it was, of course, very much better for 
him that he should ride out quietly by the 
side of Mrs. Hurrell’s palanquin, through quiet 
ravines and along lonely mountain-paths, than 
tire himself over cricket or tennis with the giddy 
throng by the Assembly Rooms. They said 
they were collecting butterflies, of which gor- 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


107 


geous specimens are to be found in the Himala- 
yas. But Mrs. Hurrell had made rather a good 
collection of her own, among the human speci- 
mens, before Philip Avebury’s arrival. But she 
put them all away now, and devoted herself to 
helping him. 

Mrs. General Gupper was spending a rather 
dull hot weather at Noluck. The station was 
very empty, save of men. There was no one to 
talk about. Imagine her delight when the post 
brought her a real ripe bit of scandal from her 
friend Mrs. de Forret at Simree. 

“I should never have believed it — no, never! 
But it’s perfectly true. Colonel Smith met them 
riding down the hill together to the railways as 
he came up, and the woman actually bowed. 
Poor, dear Mr. Hurrell, I quite feel for him! 
Such a blow ! And they say she hasn’t paid for 
a thing in Simree, and has bills all over the 
place; and you know how she dresses! That 
Mr. Avebury is certainly a very good-looking 
young man, I must say. People say they’ve 
gone to Australia, and that he has sent in his 
papers. Of course he’d be obliged to ; the Dum- 
bartonshire couldn’t stand it. Well, I am sur- 
prised! But it really serves Mr. Hurrell right. 


* 106 the tables turned. 

When Philip Avebury, a subaltern of the 
Dumbartonshire Regiment, was sent up to Sim- 
ree, on two months’ leave, after a bad attack of 
fever, his evil star led him to put up at the High- 
cliffe Hotel. This was the very headquarters of 
all the fun and the racket and the noisiness and 
the naughtiness of Simree — in fact, it had been 
honored with a little stanza all to itself by the 
local Bunthorne when the Amateur Dramatic 
Company put “Patience” on the boards. It ran 
thus : 

A Highcliffe Hotel young man, 

A kiss-and-don’t tell young man, 

A take ’em to Morrison’s and feed 'em on bonbons, 

A do-himself-well young man. 

Philip Avebury was a dark-eyed, melancholy 
youth of pensive appearance and slightly artistic 
tendencies, and with plenty of money and good 
prospects. He posed as the interesting invalid. 
As such, it was, of course, very much better for 
him that he should ride out quietly by the 
side of Mrs. Hurrell’s palanquin, through quiet 
ravines and along lonely mountain-paths, than 
tire himself over cricket or tennis with the giddy 
throng by the Assembly Rooms. They said 
they were collecting butterflies, of which gor- 


THE TABLES TURNED. 107 

geous specimens are to be found in the Himala- 
yas. But Mrs. Hurrell had made rather a good 
collection of her own, among the human speci- 
mens, before Philip Avebury’s arrival. But she 
put them all away now, and devoted herself to 
helping him. 

Mrs. General Gupper was spending a rather 
dull hot weather at Noluck. The station was 
very empty, save of men. There was no one to 
talk about. Imagine her delight when the post 
brought her a real ripe bit of scandal from her 
friend Mrs. de Forret at Simree. 

“I should never have believed it — no, never! 
But it’s perfectly true. Colonel Smith met them 
riding down the hill together to the railways as 
he came up, and the woman actually bowed. 
Poor, dear Mr. Hurrell, I quite feel for him! 
Such a blow ! And they say she hasn’t paid for 
a thing in Simree, and has bills all over the 
place; and you know how she dresses! That 
Mr. Avebury is certainly a very good-looking 
young man, I must say. People say they’ve 
gone to Australia, and that he has sent in his 
papers. Of course he’d be obliged to; the Dum- 
bartonshire couldn’t stand it. Well, I am sur- 
prised! But it really serves Mr. Hurrell right. 


io8 


THE TABLES TURNED. 


At his time of life, and with his knowledge of 
women, how could he ?” etc. 

The story was all over the north of India in a 
few days, for Hurrell was a well-known man. 
With amendments and embroideries various it 
grew and grew, forming a pleasant topic of con- 
versation now the rains had set in and everyone’s 
spirits languished. It had been such a flagrant, 
open, and above-board elopement. Now in India 
great virtue is attached to a rider locally added to 
the seventh commandment, “if thou be found out.” 

But this affair was done in the light of day. 
There was not even any finding out required 
(worse luck for the gossips). Under the circum- 
stances, it was naturally irresistible for the resi- 
dents of Simree to have a fling at the culprit, not- 
withstanding the fact that many of them resided 
in glass houses. 

How Mr. Hurrell took it — whether it was in- 
deed true that he had rushed up to Simree on 
the first hint of the business — that the two ddk 
gharrys had met en route at a change of horses, 
and that Mrs. H. had had to lean back in her 
carriage to avoid being recognized by her hus- 
band — Noluck never knew; for just at this crisis 
the Goddess of Red Tape who presides over the 


THE TABLES TURNED. 109 

Government of India swooped down upon him 
and carried him off in her peculiarly sudden and 
unmeaning fashion, to officiate for somebody or 
other somewhere else. 

En revanche , at the beginning of the cold 
weather, with the departure of the punkah- 
coolies, the advent of the globe-trotters, and the 
return of the dwellers in the hills, Noluck and 
Mrs. de Forret experienced a really startling sen- 
sation. The Dumbartonshire Regiment marched 
in to relieve the Duchess of Devonshire’s Scilly 
Highlanders, and with them came Lieutenant 
Philip Avebury, and with Lieutenant Avebury 
came — Mrs. Hurrell! 

Society at Noluck, including, of course, every- 
body who had known her there, and those who 
had been with her up at Simree, drew their vir- 
tuous garments around them, and passed her by 
on the other side. 

A great personage, who was there playing at 
soldiering in the East, and as such ruled supreme 
in Noluck cantonments as brigadier-general, was 
much scandalized and perturbed. Being himself 
a pattern of domestic virtue in a family which, 
both in the present and past generations, had not 
been noted for the same (though his mother had 


I IO 


THE TABLES TURNED . 


always been a great stickler for propriety), he 
felt himself bound to send for Avebury, and 
remonstrate with him on the presence of Mrs. 
Hurrell in his bungalow. If he could only have 
seen how the yellow-haired one laughed, when 
she read the official letter delivered in hot haste 
by the orderly ! 

Avebury arrayed himself in uniform and 
sword, and cantered leisurely down to the Gen- 
eral’s bungalow. He was a man of few words, and 
the latter had to do all the talking, which embar- 
rassed him, as he was not used to giving wig- 
gings. 

“Mr. Avebury — um — I have sent for you — um 
— to remonstrate with you on the presence — um 
— um. I have been creditably informed that 
you have — um — a lady — um — living with you — 
um, um — a Mrs. Hurrell ” 

“Pardon me, sir, not Mrs. Hurrell.’’ 

“What do you mean, sir? — the wife of Mr. 
Hurrell, the judge — I am — um — not aware that 
he has instituted any — um — divorce proceedings 
— um ’’ 

“No, sir,” replied Avebury quietly. “He 
couldn’t do that !” 


THE TABLES TURNED . 


ni 


“How — a — what? Please explain, Mr. Ave- 

bury.” 

“Well, sir, she was never his wife to di- 
vorce ” 

“Not his wife! What do you mean? Who is 
she?” 

“Mine, sir, now. Wc were married last 
month.” 


A POLO SMASH. 


"Not married? Not Brantwood? Never!" 

The Crimson Cuirassiers were sitting at mess, 
a long and glittering array of gold lace-laden 
human beings, while the tables groaned under 
trophies of silver plate. It was Mackenzie, the 
adjutant, who had announced this overwhelming 
piece of news. 

“What’s your authority, Mac?" cried a voice 
from the other end of the table. 

"No. one less than Brandy himself," replied 
Mackenzie. "Got a letter from him by mail — 
English letters just in, you know!" 

"By George, then, I’ve won my bet !" contin- 
ued the speaker with exultation. " Had a pony on 
with him as to which of us wouldn’t be married 
first. Waiter, bring a magnum of champagne." 

"And who’s the lucky one?" asked another 
voice, that of the sub., who was susceptible and 
always in love. 


112 


A POLO SMASH. 


113 


A cynical snigger went round the table. 

“Oh! a swell,” replied the oracle. ‘‘A lady 
Somebody Something — Sybil, I think — can’t re- 
member. Why, confound it, Penheale, I wish 
you’d be more careful, man.” 

For Geoffrey Penheale, sitting next the adju- 
tant, had started violently, and upset the lat- 
ter’s claret over his mess overalls. 

“Awfully sorry, old man,” rejoined the other, 
mopping his victim up with his napkin. “Show 
me Brandy’s letter, will you, after dinner?” 

“It’s at my bungalow. Come back with me 
this evening, and I will.” 

Penheale did look in at Mackenzie’s bungalow 
as he went to bed, and came out a sadder and a 
wiser man. 

The next mail’s newspapers brought a flaming 
account of the marriage, by a bishop or two, of 
Major the Hon. Basil Brantwood, of the Crimson 
Cuirassiers, with Lady Sybil, daughter of the Earl 
of Tallboys. But when Geoffrey Penheale had 
read every word of it in the Morning Post, not even 
omitting the description of the bridesmaids’ 
dresses, he went back to the bare whitewashed 
barn where he lived, and, lighting a fusee, solemnly 
committed to the flames on the tiles of the 


A POLO SMASH. 


114 

veranda, for lack of a fireplace, a packet of letters 
in a woman’s hand, and a lock of hair. Then he 
applied for three days’ leave, and went out on a 
shooting expedition all by himself. But he 
made a very poor bag. 

In due course the P. and O. steamer brought 
Major Brantwood back to the “shiny” and to the 
bosom of his regiment. Matrimony had evi- 
dently produced no alteration in him. He was 
as small and lean and dapper, as cynical and 
reserved and unpleasant as ever. His little mus- 
tache was as elaborately waxed as if it had never 
been out of cosmetique since he started home; 
the chaussure of those small feet — of which he 
was so justly proud — was as irreproachable as the 
best Bond Street bootmaker could turn them 
out. He came and dined at mess the first night 
as usual (Lady Sybil was tired, he said, with her 
journey), and before he left the table had with- 
ered up each individual thereat with some smart, 
neat, cutting thing he said, and made everyone 
feel very uncomfortable. 

The next day was Sunday. As a rule, the 
Crimson Cuirassiers could not be said to be invet- 
erate church-goers. But upon the Sabbath in 
question they were loth to leave their religious 


A POLO SMA S/L 


duties to the orderly officer told off to take the 
men to church, and turned up to a man — to see 
Lady Sybil. 

And they saw — a pale, slim slip of a girl, half 
Brant wood’s age, with a wealth of dark hair and 
large, sad gray eyes. 

“And such a dowdy!” quoth Mrs. Wildinge, 
wife of the captain of that name, and who “lived 
up to it,” as the aesthetes say of blue china. 
“Well, if I were an earl’s daughter, and had just 
had a trosseau, I’d have smarter frocks than 
that!” 

And no one doubted it of Mrs. Wildinge. But 
then the number and the magnificence of her 
gowns were a standing puzzle to her acquaint- 
ances, most of all to her husband, who was simple- 
minded, and invariably impecunious. 

Now, there had been much wondering among 
the Crimson Cuirassiers as to how Mrs. W. would 
take Brantwood’s marriage. Not that the latter 
had ever been guilty of trangressing that 
eleventh commandment which holds good in all 
crack corps, and which runs, “Thou shalt not flirt 
with thy brother-officer’s wife.” 

But then Captain Wildinge had only been 
transferred, on promotion, to the Cuirassiers a 


A POLO SMASH. 


ii 6 

short while before, and there was a time — not a 
hundred years ago — when Major Brantwood and 
Mrs. Wildinge had been fast friends all through 
one festive season at merry Mussoorie, in the 
hills. 

Geoffrey Penheale had been remiss in his at- 
tendance at church, and had not been among the 
throng to whom Major Brantwood introduced 
his bride, under the portico after service, while 
the Cuirassiers swung away back to barracks to 
the sound of merry music. It was only on the 
polo ground next day that Penheale met Lady 
Sybil. 

Brantwood was not playing, for of course he 
had not yet got any ponies together; he had 
driven his wife down in a pony-cart while the 
game was going on. When it ended, and some 
fellows sauntered up to her to chat, Brantwood 
was among those who was found refreshing him- 
self at the “peg” table spread under the mango- 
tree for thirsty players. Penheale was next him, 
clad in red and white striped polo jersey, jaunty 
cap, and white breeches and boots, similarly 
engaged. 

“Here, Penheale, don't think you know my 
wife!” and the major, with the pride of the pos- 


A POLO SMASH. 1 17 

Sessor of a new toy, seized Penheale by the arm 
and dragged him up to the pony-cart. 

“Sybil — here — let me introduce Penheale.’’ 

Every vestige of color faded from Lady Syb- 
il’s cheek as she turned round and saw Penheale 
before her. The latter became as white as his 
nether garments, and dropped his eyes. 

“What’s the matter, dear Lady Sybil?” asked 
a silvery voice at her side. “You look as if you 
were going to faint. Not used to the heat, I 
suppose. Do, someone, get her a ‘peg’ — oh, but 
you must, just a weak one!” 

The observant speaker was Mrs. Wildinge, on 
her little chestnut Arab, who had malevolently 
watched for some time Lady Sybil monopolizing 
all the men’s attention. 

Three days afterward Geoffrey Penheale, who 
had put down his name to go in for a garrison 
class course at a station at some distance, soon 
after hearing of Brantwood’s marriage, departed, 
to go, as it were, to school again. Everyone 
missed him ; he was a very popular fellow. 

It was two months before he came back to the 
regiment, to find Lady Sybil looking paler and 
sadder than ever. 

The next day the Crimson Cuirassiers gave a 


II 


A POLO SMASH. 


dance to the royal duke, who, in guise of divis- 
ional major-general, had come over to inspect 
them. The intoxication of the brilliant scene, 
the glamour of the soul-stirring waltzes, got into 
Penheale’s head. Almost before he knew what 
he was doing, he had asked Lady Sybil, ethereal- 
looking in her billowy white tulle, for a dance. 

The delirium of feeling her once more in his 
arms unloosed his tongue, as a few minutes later 
they found themselves sitting alone in the dim 
veranda, the music hushed, and the moonlit gar- 
den stretched out before them. 

“Sybil! Sybil!” he asked hoarsely and bit- 
terly, “how could you?” 

All answer was a sob. 

“Is this your love, your faith?” 

The tears fell fast on the billowy white tulle. 

“Oh ! answer me, Sybil. Surely I deserve — 
surely I’ve a right to know.” 

“Oh! Geoffrey,” she broke out, in agony — 
“oh! you misjudge me terribly. If you but 
knew — how they drove me to it. Mamma said 
it was such a good match ; papa is so hard up ; 
there are so many of us girls; they left me no 
peace till I accepted him. How could I guess 
I was to meet you?” 


A POLO SMASH. 


119 

“I had exchanged, to get away out of Eng- 
land. I could not bear my life after your people 
dismissed me, but I remained true, Sybil, all this 
while. I’ve never thought even of anyone else!” 

He was torturing her, and she gave a little cry 
of pain. 

“Oh, Geoffrey, if you only knew! I’ve never 

thought of anyone else day and night Oh, 

God, what am I saying ! But it’s true, it’s true !” 

She buried her face in her hands and sobbed 
aloud. Only the sound of her weeping broke the 
stillness, till the music suddenly began again and 
recalled them to themselves. 

Sybil started up and recovered herself with a 
mighty effort, and as she did so Penheale’s self- 
control gave way. He caught her in his arms, 
and, pressing her lips to his, whispered : 

“Forgive me, my darling!” 

The next minute they had passed out into the 
lighted ball-room, and, after a safe interval, the 
form of Mrs. Wildinge arose from an arm-chair 
in a dark corner, where she had been resting. 

“Very pretty!” she said to herself.' “Very 
pretty! And, upon my word, very good for 
such a young and artless beginner. Master 
Brandy, you’ve got a wife worthy of you!” 


120 


A POLO SMASH. 


A few days later that officer was detailed for a 
general court-martial at a station at some dis- 
tance. Instead of lasting only two or three days, 
the trial, which was an important one, dragged 
on, and detained him much longer than he ex- 
pected. To compensate him for the detention, 
however, he had the agreeable excitement of 
receiving by post an anonymous letter, which 
ran thus : 

‘‘You had better look after your wife and 
Geoffrey P. If, for instance, the trial happened 
to be over in time for you to take the train 
which arrives at your station late in the evening, 
and you accidentally happened to walk up to 
your bungalow quietly, you might see and hear 
something to your advantage — or otherwise.” 

I suppose Major Brantwood would hardly have 
been human if, in the end, after many pros and 
cons , he had not profited by this advice. An old 
poacher makes a very good gamekeeper, and 
with him a hint was enough. He did come by 
the last train, and he did walk up from the sta- 
tion, a most unprecedented occurrence in a land 
where no one ever walks who can drive, and a 


A POLO SMASH. 


121 


most unusual thing for a man with Major Brant- 
wood’s neat boots to do on the dusty Indian 
roads. 

Whether the game was worth the candle, or 
the scandal worth his little game, no one ever 
knew, for the chokedar , or watchman, was sound 
asleep, as in duty bound, in one corner of the 
veranda, and the servants were all in bed for the 
night in their little row of mud hovels in one 
corner of the compound. 

Mrs. Wildinge, who, of course, had penned the 
anonymous letter, would have given her eyes to 
find out if she had done any harm or not; but 
next day a terrible event turned her thoughts in 
quite a different direction. 

This event was none other than that dreadful 
polo accident which threw such a gloom over the 
Cuirassiers. 

The polo ground, after the manner of polo 
grounds in India at that season, was simply a sea 
of dust when it had been played on for a little 
while. A pillar of cloud accompanied the play- 
ers as they scurried over the ground, and hid 
them from the spectators, and often from each 
other. 

No one ever knew quite what happened. Two 


122 


A POLO SMASH. 


or three were riding for the ball. The dust was 
so thick you couldn’t see a yard in front of you. 
Someone crossed, or someone came up off side. 
No one knew. But there was a terrible collision; 
and when the dust cleared off Brantwood was 
seen slowly picking himself up. But Geoffrey 
Penheale lay motionless on the ground. It was 
fracture of the skull, the doctors said, and he 
never spoke again, and died in the night. 

Brantwood appeared more perturbed by the 
accident than anyone had ever seen him by any- 
thing before. In fact, he seemed to feel it more 
than he did his wife’s death, which took place 
suddenly, not many weeks after, of cholera, one 
of those solitary sporadic cases which crop up 
occasionally in even the best-sanitated stations. 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 


It was getting very hot. Never mind what 
the glass stood’ at in the veranda at noon; it 
was too hot to go out and see. The voice of the 
brain fever bird was once more heard in the land, 
its agonizing prolonged three notes proclaiming 
the hot weather was nigh. Houses were being 
taken in the hill stations, and the feminine por- 
tion of the population was packing up. 

But my breast was stirred by no dreams of hill 
flirtations, of Cashmere big game, or of leave 
home. I was on pig-sticking bent, and not being 
exactly of a frugal mind, I had set myself up 
well with the noble animal and had entered the 
horse I fancied most for the Bulampore Tent 
Club Cup. 

The sun was low in the western sky as I rode 
out toward the camp of meeting, from a large 
station sacred in the British mind to one of the 
saddest memories of the Mutiny times. My way 


124 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR . 


lay through the ruins of former cantonments, 
along dusty, tree-bordered highways, along which 
herds of goats and cows were being driven in 
from pasture (save the mark!). Then I struck 
across country, past emerald wheat crops and 
sun-baked plain, and by clusters of mud huts 
yclept villages, to which, as their sanitary ar- 
rangements were not all that could be desired, I 
gave a wide berth. Here and there a govern- 
ent-planted rectangular group of mango trees 
broke the level flat. 

Presently I reached the sacred river, and rode 
along the high sand-banks it throws up in the 
rains. All the way I had met nothing but crows 
and coolies, but then, like snakes and the cholera, 
these we have always with us in India. Once 
on a plain I had fancied I descried a herd of 
black buck among the low scrub, and now on the 
river sands I disturbed three pariah dogs quarrel- 
ing over the body of a defunct Hindoo, that 
Mother Ganges had rejected from her sacred 
bosom. 

The sun had set rapidly in a cloudless cad- 
mium sky, and the short Indian twilight was 
coming on, bringing with it a perceptible lower- 
ing of the temperature. So I hurried the polo 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 12 5 

pony I was riding into a hand canter and gained 
the camp. 

Under the auspices of an indefatigable secre- 
tary, a cluster of white tabernacles had arisen 
under the grateful shades of a mango grove. In 
the midst stood the mess-tent. On the outskirts 
of the grove everybody’s horses were tethered in 
lines, with head and heel ropes. Their single 
blanket formed their manger by day, and a single 
bucket and brush their toilet requisites. Their 
two attendants slept and ate by their side, and 
their luggage was of quite an elementary descrip- 
tion. 

A smaller wood a couple of hundred yards 
farther off was given over to the married camp. 
There the ladies were out of earshot of the mid- 
night revelry which is apt to disturb the bats in 
our camp. Also it shows how we discourage the 
feminine element altogether. Some of the talk- 
ative sex would indeed view the sport from the 
howdah of an elephant on the morrow, but as yet 
none will show us the way. I never heard of a 
woman carrying a spear and pig-sticking. Here 
is an opening for the shrieking sisterhood. 

Before I turned in for my ante-prandial tub, 
more India, I went to have a look at the nags. 


126 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR . 


As is usually the case, they had marched hither. 
It is really odd in India how we intrust a valua- 
ble animal to an utterly faithless native and dis- 
patch him to proceed his stages of ten miles a 
day for days and even weeks, through a country 
devoid of inns and unknown to the groom. He 
turns up somehow, however, probably having 
stolen and eaten a good deal of the horse’s forage 
and pocketed some of the rupees provided for 
the latter’s subsistence, and the horse appears 
very little the worse for it. 

The evening was oppressed with a sense of the 
importance of the morrow. After dinner, the 
forty horses (for it is the horses, not the drivers, 
who enter for the Cup, the horses being fre- 
quently not ridden by their owners), were drawn 
by lot into ten heats of four each. Then when 
we had greeted old friends and acquaintances, 
discussed our own and everyone else’s animals, 
and perhaps done a bit of horse-dealing, and told 
not a few lies, we think about bed. 

Not but what it seems a pity. The night is 
still, starry, and balmy as only an Indian night 
can be. The camp is very still, and as we throw 
away the end of a cigar, before we turn in, only 
a pariah bays from a neighboring village, or a 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 1 27 

jackal howls in the distance. A disturbed owl in 
the mango tree above wanted to know what it all 
meant, but I didn’t enlighten him, and sought 
such repose upon my curtainless “charpoy” as 
the mosquitoes would allow me. 

“Sahib, sahib, half six has struck. Sahib, 
sahib !” 

The old bearer mumbled imploringly in my 
ear. I consigned him to all sorts of dreadful 
places, but with a perseverance born of long ex- 
perience he went at it again. In an inconceiv- 
ably short space of time he had got me up and 
dressed me, and booted and spurred I was sip- 
ping my morning tea at the door of the tent. 
The crows are up, though the sun is scarcely so. 
It must, indeed, be an early worm that can cir- 
cumvent the Indian crows. There is much 
shouting at and for servants, and some bad lan- 
guage going on in the tents around. Tempers 
are not sweet at 7 A. M. 

Gradually everyone emerges. We are indeed 
a motley crew, for every class of the European 
population in India is represented. There is one. 
civilian, a full-blown commissioner, whom every- 
one, notwithstanding, calls “Jim.” Five and 
twenty years in the “shiny” have not dimmed his 


128 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 


geniality and his love of sport, and though it has 
somewhat reduced his spare little form, we shall 
presently see him going as well as anyone. The 
climate has had an opposite effect upon his 
equally sporting colleague, whose broad back 
looms before me upon a countrybred cob. Colo- 
nels are there and noisy subalterns, rising “com- 
petition-wallahs,” and sporting police officers, 
with a detective’s eye on a pig. Trade is not 
unrepresented, and a neighboring rajah, who 
owns and has entered some fine Arabs, comes 
out to view the sport on a wonderfully capari-. 
soned steed. 

The costumes are as varied as the riders. 
Some men go in for a turban, some for a mush- 
room-shaped pith hat, while some wear a soldier’s 
helmet with a curtain hanging down over the 
nape of the neck to protect them from the sun. 
Some men ride in thin tweed or flannel coats, 
some in white drill or drab-colored “karkee” cot- 
ton, some wear merely a flannel shirt, while oth- 
ers are padded across the shoulders and down the 
spine as a cricketer pads his legs. But one and 
all grasp a stout male bamboo, six feet six inches 
long, weighted with lead at one end, and tipped 
at the other with a fine steel head. 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. tig 

As various, too, are the mounts. Smart-look- 
ing little country or stucUbreds, with, perhaps, 
queer tempers and man-eating propensities; lan- 
guid-looking stumbling Arabs, who look a pig in 
the white of the eye, as the French say; and 
grand big Walers (Australians) standing sixteen 
hands high, like English hunters and splendid 
fencers, but alas, not equally stanch to pig! 

There was a general move toward the home 
preserve, which is to be drawn first. It was a 
large patch of grass jungle, tall elephant grass, 
kept sacred for this big meet. The sportsmen 
drew off on either side to the shelter of two small 
villages, and the hundreds, of native beaters and 
the long line of elephants were turned into 
covert. 

Those who were drawn in the first heat tight- 
ened their girths and sat lance in rest. We, 
whose turn was not yet come, lit our cigars. To 
each party was an umpire. 

Nearer and nearer down the jungle came the 
roar of the beaters’ cries through the fresh morn- 
ing air. We could see the tall grass waving 
where the elephants were crashing through. 
The game began to break covert. Pea-fowl flew 
screeching away over our heads, and a herd of 


130 AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 

startled black buck leapt wildly away across the 
open, in prodigious bounds. Hares ran under 
our very horses' feet, and quail and partridge 
whirred by unnoticed. 

Suddenly a large, dark mass lolloped quietly 
away from a corner of the jungle. No one 
stirred till he had got a good start, and the um- 
pire shouted “ride !” 

In an instant four riders were after the boar. 
One was on a Waler, two on Arabs, and the 
fourth was that civilian with whom the climate 
agreed so well, mounted on his cob. But the 
Waler had the pace, and got up with the pig 
first. Looking on at the horse laying himself 
out at a racing gallop, and the pig “gallumping 
awkwardly on just ahead,” one failed to under- 
stand how the former did not gain on him. But 
the way the pig negotiated an eight-foot chain in 
his stride showed how good the pace really was. 
But piggy, getting blown, perhaps, after a good 
straight run across the plain, “jinked” to the left, 
and the Waler could not or would not turn 
smartly enough. This let in one of the Arabs. 
The boar led him over a castor-oil field, with a 
crop some ten feet high, which taken externally 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 131 

brought his rider to grief. The Waler came up 
again, and rattled the pig into a corn crop. But 
the Waler sheered off just as his rider got along- 
side with his spear down for a thrust. The pig 
“jinked” across under the horse’s nose, and ran 
almost between the legs of the country-bred with 
the heavy-weight, who, disregarding any interfer- 
ence on the part of the society for suppressing 
cruelty to animals, turned the cob round upon 
him in a moment, and took first spear off him in 
the quarters. 

While this run was proceeding, several other 
pigs had broken covert, and other parties had 
been dispatched after them. At a big meeting 
like this for the Cup, sows are frequently ridden 
as well as boars, though this is not the case in 
everyday sport/ Some of the weaker sex, how- 
ever, led their pursers a fine dance, and one old 
lady squatted down defiantly in a path of corn, 
and charged like a boar. Of course it is the first 
spear that counts, but in most cases the pigs were 
polished off, some few escaping, we hope, to fight 
another day. Some showed fight ; one gray old 
fellow, badly wounded, sat himself down under a 
thorn bush, foaming at the mouth and charging 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 


I32 

desperately, till an individual with more pluck 
than discretion dismounted and gave him his 
quietus by a lucky shot between the shoulders. 

My turn came unexpectedly; I never have any 
luck. My stable companions were on Arabs too, 
and a long stern chase was looked for. But I 
got a bad start, and for some time only rode after 
the others for lack of seeing the boar. Then 
there ensued a hitch and an incoherency in a 
wheat crop. The pig had squatted. Someone 
spotted him and whoo-whooped on my right, and 
before I was aware a huge black mass, thirty- 
three inches at shoulder with bristles erect and 
murderous-looking tusks, bore down upon me. 

“Steady, old boy !” as I set the little Arab at 
him, with my heart standing still with excite- 
ment. 

“The deuce!” as I miss him, sticking my spear 
into the ground, and nearly dislocating my 
shoulder. 

By the time I have wheeled round and .recov- 
ered my weapon, the pig was leading the others 
through a low ddk jungle of scrub, calculated 
to push you out of your saddle at every stride. 
Here he “jinked,” and No. 4 made a lunge at him, 
and, Lwas glad to see (and hear), missed him too. 


AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 133 

Then across a strip of fallow and into a guava 
orchard over an Irish on-and-off bank. This was 
a great mistake on my part, for I nearly battered 
my skull into guava jelly, the branches were so 
low. I dismounted ignominiously and led out. 
When the Arab allowed me to get up again the 
pig and the party were making for what is, by 
courtesy, called the island. It is the second pre- 
serve, surrounded by the Ganges on one side, and 
on the other, at this time of year, only, by low 
sands and pools. Seeing No. 2 and his horse 
immersing themselves in one of the latter, as 
they plunge through after the pig, I decide for 
what looks like terra firma . 

But the sands appear more treacherous than 
the water. Are they quicksands? They yield 
every now and again alarmingly. Steady, old 
man ! Again one of these queer, soft-looking, 
deceptive circles. I feel for the master of Rav- 
enswood. 

By Jove! in we go, the Arab and I, with a 
crash, the latter up to his knees, and we part 
company. 

How many broken legs have we between us? 

We get up and find ourselves intact. 

No. I sails by cheerily. 


134 AFTER THE WILY BOAR. 

“All right, old chap? ’Ware melon beds! 
One of the few sources of promotion left in the 
country !” 

Melon beds? Who ever heard of growing 
melons in a dry river-bed ! What a country this 
India is ! 

A loud hooroosh from the island. I realize 
that someone else has got the first spear, and 
that I have not won the Bulampore Cup. 

But that evening, when, after a mid-day halt, 
the final heats have been run off in the twilight, 
and after dinner we hoist the victor round the 
mess-tent with psalms and hymns and (very) 
spiritual songs, I promise myself better luck next 
time. 


IN THE RAJAH’S PALACE. 


I MUST confess that I felt very disappointed 
with her. 

I had ridden up to her carriage at the band- 
stand on the Mall. The strains of the last new 
waltz out from home were floating among the 
millingtonia trees, drowning the champing of the 
horses' bits, and the chatter of the ayahs and 
children wandering admiringly round the sol- 
diers. 

“Mrs. Ingledene,” I had said, “I am getting up 
an expedition — sport and picnicking combined — 
to the Rajah’s palace at Bundelpore, for three 
days. Will you make one of the party?” 

Her face lighted up — such a pretty face — such 
sweet eyes. 

“What a capital idea! I shall be delighted!” 
she exclaimed. “But — will you mind my bring- 
ing a friend — a Mr. Lingmoor, who just then will 
be staying with us, I think?” 


136 IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

Then it was that I felt disappointed with her. 

I had always firmly believed that Jack Ingle- 
dene and his wife were devoted to each other. I 
had only listened with half an ear to Mrs. Crab- 
tree’s spiteful stories of the doings at naughty 
Nynee, during the last season, when the immacu- 
late Mrs. Ingledene was supposed, after the fash- 
ion of grass-widows in the hills, to have taken to 
herself a “bow-wow.” 

Though Jack Ingledene was on duty on a long 
court-martial, I knew that he would not object 
to his wife going with me, an old friend of her 
father’s family, and backed by such an unim- 
peachable chaperone as Mrs. Crabtree. 

But I was disappointed when Ethel Ingledene 
calmly turned up her pretty face to mine, and as 
good as told me that, unless she was allowed to 
bring this same “bow-wow, V she would not come 
to my picnic. 

But all the same, like the old fool I am, with 
my next breath I expressed how delighted I 
should be to see Mr. Lingmoor, cursing the 
Indian “bow-wow” system all the time most 
devoutly. 

As the Collector of Punkahpore, the ruler of a 
district as large as an English county, and wield- 


IN THE RA JAM’S PALACE. 137 

ing a sway over hundreds of thousands of dusky 
natives, I am a personage of some importance 
in the eyes of the neighboring semi-independent 
Rajah of Bundelpore. This gentleman, though 
of dubious character, and unable to write his own 
name, is the despotic ruler of wide territories, 
and the happy possessor of diamond aigrettes, 
such as would delight the heart of an English 
duchess. 

I have standing permission to shoot over his 
arid plains and rocky hill country, and to stay, 
whenever I like, in his beautiful summer palace 
of Bundelpore, which place is but little troubled 
with his presence, as His Highness prefers his 
town-house in Guramabad, where he can indulge 
in European luxuries and vices. 

We drove the twenty odd miles which lay be- 
tween Punkahpore and Bundelpore with relays 
of horses, along a straight, dusty, tree-bordered 
road, fairly good as long as it ran in my territory, 
but execrable as soon as it entered that of the 
Maharajah. We were a merry party of about a 
dozen, in three carriages, followed by a camel- 
carriage, containing the commissariat, the ser- 
vants, and the rolls of bedding, without which no 
European travels in India. 


138 IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

I had been somewhat disappointed at my old 
chum Colonel Tachbrook not turning up. He 
was retiring, and leaving the country for good, 
and it was mainly with the object of giving him 
some good sport that I had arranged the expedi- 
tion. However, he was delayed up-country, and 
we were obliged to start without him. 

Mrs. Ingledene was looking very pretty and 
was in the best of spirits. Lionel Lingmoor, a 
subaltern in the Royal Scilly Islanders, was a 
good-looking, easy-mannered fellow, whom she 
appeared to find charming. 

The only discordant element was the station 
doctor, Griffenhoofe, a sneering, ill-natured fel- 
low, who had never forgiven Mrs. Ingledene for 
snubbing him on her first arrival at Punkahpore, 
and who chuckled fiendishly over her very open 
flirtation with Lingmoor. 

Bundelpore, built entirely of pale salmon- 
colored stone, and gorgeous with carved eaves 
and mullions, oriel windows, delicate friezes and 
arches, turrets, cupolas and hanging balconies, 
lies — a dream of beauty — in the midst of green 
groves of orange, melon, and mango trees. 

On one front a broad stone terrace overlooks 
the shady garden walks, the ponds, and stone 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE . 


139 


summer-houses; on the other, a large artificial 
lake, with a little tower and steps at each angle, 
bathed the very walls of the palace itself. 

The Rajah, like many other Indian princes, 
kept some hunting leopards in a barred cage in 
the garden, and in the lake some huge black 
‘‘muggers” or alligators, loathsome-looking beasts 
which were fed daily from one of the windows 
with lumps of flesh. 

We drove under the great gate of Bundelpore, 
saluted by some of the Maharajah’s ragamuffin 
sentries, just as the sun was setting behind some 
low bare hills, and flooding the palace with a tint 
of gold. 

The crows were cawing in the trees, ring-doves 
cooed in the shady depths of the gardens, and 
flights of tame pigeons circled above the roofs 
and cupolas. The scen'e was a delicious change 
from our painfully uniform bungalows, our 
straight Mall, and the ceaseless bugle-calls that 
pervaded Punkahpore. 

We dined in a vast hall, with carved Moorish 
arches, and after dinner we sat about on the ter- 
race, smoking and discussing the plans for the 
morrow. 

I rather fancy I must have had a nap in my 


14 ° IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE . 

easy-chair, for I was aroused by a low, sneering 
chuckle from Griffenhoofe, sitting next me. 

We were alone on the terrace, but the moon, 
which had just risen, showed us two figures walk- 
ing down a path in the garden. 

“Deuced funny, isn’t it? These women are all 
the same! They come out from England per- 
fect Mimosas, and after a few months’ training at 
a hill-station that’s what happens.” And he 
chuckled satirically again. 

It was Mrs. Ingledene walking with Lingmoor. 

The sight made me feel rather sick at heart. 

We all turned in early that night, for we were 
to be up betimes to start in the morning. 

The ladies had been installed in the rooms on 
the left of the great hall usually allotted to the 
Rajah’s zenana , and we men occupied those on 
the right. They were not overclean, and rather 
bare. 

I found my servant had laid out my bedding 
and Griffenhoofe’s in one of the top rooms. 
Opening out of that was another room, where 
Lingmoor and Colonel Crabtree were to sleep; 
the other fellows were billeted in the rooms 
below. 

It was a hot night, and Crabtree, who was 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 141 

fussy, said it was less stuffy in one of the veran- 
das, and so departed, leaving Lingmoor in sole 
possession. 

I felt restless and disinclined for sleep. I lay 
long awake listening to the jackal’s screech, the 
pariah dog’s bray, and the lapping of the water 
of the lake against the wall. I lay watching the 
bright moonlight throw golden bars across the 
somewhat dirty walls through the carved, glass- 
less window. 

Suddenly something roused me. A shadow 
fell across the moonlight on the wall. The thick 
curtain in the doorless archway moved aside. A 
woman’s figure entered the room. 

There was no mistaking it ; it was Ethel Ingle- 
dene. 

I sprang up, as if to speak to her ; but, at that 
moment, she turned and looked at me. Her face 
was so unutterably sad that the words froze on 
my lips. 

Then, to my amazement, I saw her push aside 
the curtain of the doorway leading to the next 
room, where Lingmoor was sleeping, and disap- 
pear behind it. 

I sat motionless for a minute or two, for \ 
felt as if someone had dealt me a heavy blow, 


142 IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

Griffenhoofe’s voice aroused me ; he was 
awake, too. If ever I saw an evil look on a 
man’s face, his wore it at that moment. 

“Crabtree was right,” he said, gathering up his 
bedding. “It will be much cooler down below.” 

I followed his example, and departed, but I 
did not go to sleep. 

My thoughts flew back to the happy country 
home where I had known Ethel Ingledene as a 
child with long fair hair; to the good old rector, 
her father; to honest Jack Ingledene, whom we 
all liked so much, poor boy! and I felt — well, I 
felt I should like to have the shooting of Ling- 
moor. What if, when we were out after deer on 
the morrow, a shot should chance to go astray ! 
Such things had happened. 

But not this time, however. We all shot very 
straight, and made good bags. I managed to 
give Lingmoor a wide berth all day, for his good 
spirits and cheery chaff were even more unbear- 
able to me than Griffenhoofe’s unpleasant inuen- 
does. 

It was getting dusk when we returned to the 
palace. I quite dreaded meeting Mrs. Ingle- 
dene, who had not shown before we started in 
the morning. Therefore I was very relieved to 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. H3 

hear that she had a bad headache from the sun, 
and would not be able to come down to dinner. 

Just as I was having my ante-prandial tub — a 
simple process, consisting of standing on the 
bath-room floor, and having pitchers of water 
poured over one by one’s bearer — I heard a 
familiar voice on the terrace below. It was my 
old chum, Tachbrook, just arrived. Such a 
pleasant surprise it was, and one which somewhat 
restored my good humor. 

We had a very cheery dinner. Afterward we 
amused ourselves throwing bits of meat from a 
balcony overhanging the lake to the alligators 
below. The black, slimy monsters rose out of 
the water into the moonlight, and fought and 
struggled for the bits we threw, crawling on one 
another’s backs, and opening their huge mouths, 
set with rows of cruel teeth. 

Miss Crabtree, the spinster of our party, 
turned away with a shudder. 

“It gives me the creeps to look at them,” she 
said. “I want to talk of something more pleas- 
ant — your charming friend, Colonel Tachbrook. 
What a dear old thing he is! Now, tell me, is it 
true what I hear, that there is some romantic 
story about him — that he was engaged to a girl 


144 IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

who was killed in the Mutiny, and that that’s the 
reason he was never married? Do tell me !” 

Of course I had heard something of the kind 
about Tachbrook, but I was not going to divulge 
any secret of my friend’s. 

“My dear young lady,” I replied mysteriously, 
“you are as curious and as romantic as all your 
sex. Pray, believe it if you like.” 

“You are very irritating,” she laughed, and 
turned away ! 

Then Tachbrook himself came up. 

“This Bundelpore Rajah of yours, wasn’t he 
very troublesome to us in ’57?” he asked. 

“It was his father, not the present man. He 
turned against us from the first, don’t you re- 
member? and attacked and killed the Europeans 
at Guramabad, and at Punkahpore.” 

A shadow crossed Tachbrook’s face. To hide 
it, he caressed his gray mustache pensively. 

“I was away before Delhi then. But I remem- 
ber it all now — I remember it all.” 

He turned aside, and changed the conversa- 
tion. 

Griffenhoofe had given up his place in my 
sleeping apartment to Tachbrook, much to my 
delight. I was dog-tired, and trusted that I 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 145 

should be undisturbed by any such unpleasant epi- 
sode as that of the night before. But Tachbrook 
appeared restless, and not inclined to sleep. 

“Rum thing it is, old man, I should be stop- 
ping in one of Bundelpore’s palaces. You’ve 
heard me speak of Ethel Brooke sometimes — 
that dear little girl I was engaged to in ’57, 
before the troubles began. She went away to 
stay with some people at Guramabad just before 
the Mutiny broke out. I was ordered suddenly 
to Delhi, and then came the Guramabad massa- 
cre. I never heard of her again — not a sign — not 
a word. Thank God, the Rajah died the death 
he deserved — done to death by a traitor! And 
now his son is our good friend, and I am his 
guest! Such is life! Heigh ho!” 

He lighted a cigar, and smoked me to sleep. 

How long I slept I don’t know. A sudden cry 
from Tachbrook woke me with a start. 

“Ethel! Great God! it is Ethel!” 

I sprang up, and there, stealing in through the 
curtain, exactly as she had done the night 
before, came Mrs. Ingledene. 

Tachbrook stared at her like a madman. 

“Poor fellow!” I said to myself. “These sad 
memories have upset his head.” 


146 IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

She glided behind the curtain into Lingmoor’s 
room. Tachbrook jumped up, and followed her. 

“At any price, a scandal must be prevented,” 
thought I, and I sprang up, too, and followed 
him. 

Lingmoor was sleeping the sleep of youth, and 
of a hard day’s shooting. 

Tachbrook, with outstretched arms, stared at 
the dark form, which slowly flitted across the 
room. 

She passed through the open window, out on 
to the balcony overhanging the lake. 

A horrible fear seized me. She saw herself 
discovered, and would not live to face the shame. 

“Stop her! stop her!” I cried. 

We both rushed out on to the balcony. 

It was empty ! 

The night breeze ruffled the dark surface of 
the lake in the depths of which the muggers were 
sleeping. 

Tachbrook and I glared at each other, I too 
horrified to speak. 

Then a voice called me from the stairs : 

“You are wanted at once, Collector Sahib. 
There is an old crone, the mother, or aunt, or 
some such relation of the Rajah, who lives in a 


tN THE EAJAH'S PALACE. 147 

little house in the garden, and who is dying, and 
wants to see you very urgently.” 

“Oh! do come,” said another voice, a very 
sweet one. “I did what I could for her this 
afternoon when you were away, and I found her 
so ill. But she has something on her mind to 
tell you, and I promised you should come. Be 
quick, or it will be too late!” 

The speaker was Mrs. Ingledene, standing at 
the door of my room, looking lovely in a white 
peignor. At first I thought she was a ghost. 
But I grasped her arm. It was firm flesh and 
blood. 

“I will go at once,” I said. “You go back to 
bed.” 

As I went down the stairs, I heard Lingmoor’s 
voice calling : 

“Send someone with brandy. Colonel Tach- 
brook has fainted.” 

They led me to one of those little garden- 
houses, common in the east, where an almost 
sightless, toothless old hag lay at her last gasp. 

“You are the Government’s servant,” she said, 
“the great sahib — you are good to my nephew, 
the Maharajah — you have forgiven of your great 
clemency the wickedness of my brother, when 


148 IN THE RA JAN'S PALACE. 

he killed your people, your women and children. 
I have something to say before I die, if your 
Highness will listen. ” 

She spoke with difficulty, and in gasps. I 
bent down to catch her words. 

“Her spirit came to me to-day, so I know that 
I am dying — the spirit of the beautiful young 
white maiden, with the yellow hair, whom my 
brother carried off from Guramabad, when he 
killed the rest, and whom he brought here. She 
was kind to me, the spirit ; she has forgiven me. 
For I took her jewels. I have them now. I 
wish to give them back to a white sahib, lest the 
devils should torment me when I am gone. The 
Rajah shut her up in the top rooms — no one 
could hear her cries there — she could not escape 
— he put men on the stairs to keep the door. He 
delighted in the yellow-haired maiden — he would 
have made her his favorite wife — but one morn- 
ing, when we opened the door — she was gone. 
Her jewels were there — and a little holy book 
she carried in her bosom — see, here they are.” 

From under her pillow she drew, with feeble 
grasp, a yellow, worn, little English prayer-book 
and a gold brooch and earrings, and gave them 
to me. 


i49 


W THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 

As I opened the book I was aware of two peo- 
ple looking over my shoulder. Tachbrook and 
Mrs. Ingledene had followed me. 

The fly-leaf was yellow and dirty, but the 
name on it perfectly legible : 

‘‘Ethel Brooke, September, 1856. 

“Hardleigh Hall.” 

A great groan broke from Tachbrook. 

“It is her name — her writing,” he answered, 
and hid his face in his hands. 

‘‘That was my mother’s sister’s name,” gasped 
Mrs. Ingledene. “Their home was at Hardleigh 
Hall — I remember hearing she came out to India 
and was killed in ” 

Tachbrook interrupted her. 

“You are her niece?” he asked in a gentle 
voice. “You are her very image; I think I see 
her again.” 

And he drew her to him, and kissed her on 
the forehead. 

I turned over the gold brooch in my hand. 

“There is a miniature in the back, see!” 

Mrs. Ingledene looked, and gave a cry. 

“That is my mother when a girl. I know it 
quite well — I have one like it !” 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 


*$* 

There was a faint gurgle from the bed. The 
old native woman in the corner, who had been 
watching us, fell back dead. 

We left her, and passed out into the cool gar- 
den, where the bird-life was just awakening. 

Mrs. Ingledene disappeared to her own apart- 
ment. Tachbrook went out alone for a walk. I 
thought it best to leave him to himself. We 
were great friends, but after a discovery such as 
this, not even the greatest friends can be any 
comfort. 

Worn out by the night’s emotions, I fell asleep 
till breakfast time. When I joined the rest of 
the party in the great hall, I found everyone 
devouring letters and papers just brought out 
from Punkahpore by a messenger. 

Mrs. Ingledene rushed at me with outstretched 
hands: 

“I want you to be the first to hear, for you are 
my oldest friend in this country, and I have so 
hated to have a secret from you ! Listen, I have 
just got my home letters, and papa has, at last, 
given his consent to Nellie’s marriage with Lio- 
nel Lingmoor. I’m so happy! You remember 
Nellie, the youngest of us all — they got engaged 
when he was home last summer on leave — and 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE . 15 1 

papa was furious. So they have been corre- 
sponding through me, and I have been doing all I 
can to help them. And now that Lionel is to 
get his captaincy, papa has given in. I’m so 
glad, for he’s such a nice fellow, isn’t he? though, 
of course, I shall never think anyone quite 
good enough for Nell!” 

“I remember Nell perfectly. I carried her 
pick-a-back the last time I saw her. And as I 
can’t congratulate her personally, let me do it by 
proxy, dear little lady.” 

So saying, I bent down and kissed Mrs. Ingle- 
dene on the forehead. If Jack could have read 
in my heart how penitent I was for my horrible 
suspicions, I do not think he would have ob 
jected. 

Just then Crabtree bustled up. 

“Here’s Lingmoor been getting into such a 
mess — just like a griff. He’s gone and shot one 
of the Rajah’s muggers — didn’t think there was 
any harm. Come and see what’s to be done !” 

“Nothing, I should think, except to administer 
a few judicious rupees all round to keep it quiet,” 
I replied, and followed Crabtree to the steps lead- 
ing down to the lake, where Lingmoor was sur- 
veying the huge carcass of the dead alligator. 


IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE. 


* 5 2 

“ ’Pon my honor, I didn’t realize they were 
preserved! I’m awfully sorry.” 

“You may as well have him stuffed now 
you’ve got him,” I remarked. “He’s a splendid 
fellow, the grandfather of them all, I should 
judge.” 

I called a low-caste native, who began to cut 
up the animal. 

Presently, in his stomach, we came on some- 
thing small and glittering. I picked it up. It 
was a gold ring. 

I rubbed it bright, and then saw some letters 
engraved on the inside : 

“Ethel, from W. T.,” I read aloud. 

“Will you let me have it?” said a voice behind 
me. 

And I handed it to Tachbrook without a 
word. 


TWO STRINGS. 


At home in the Park in England it was white 
waistcoat weather, when women appear in sweet 
cotton frocks, when the social air buzzes with 
cricket and yachting talk, and men begin to feel 
their gout and to say they must go to Homburg. 
Up in the Himalayas, where the little collection 
of chalets dotted about the precipices among the 
ilex and the rhododendrons form what is called 
a hill-station, the monsoon was at its height. 
Drip, drip, drip — hammer, hammer, hammer — for 
sometimes a day and a night at a stretch, down 
upon the corrugated iron roofs of the bungalows, 
came the rain. The frogs and the leeches, the 
fungi and the ferns, grew and multiplied, but 
it was enough to damp the cheeriest, giddiest 
nature that ever reveled in the ceaseless round of 
frivolity and fooling that goes on at Murree. 

Ten o’clock at night. A wood fire made of 
damp logs that declined to burn brightly. The 
153 


iS4 


TWO STRINGS. 


wind howling among the deodars, the rain pelt- 
ing, the shivering servants rolled up in rugs 
asleep in their own log huts — not a soul stirring 
in the draughty little bungalow but herself. It 
was most depressing ; the kind of evening when 
every worry, every error, everything you would 
rather not have said, assumes magnified propor- 
tions and haunts you. 

So it was with Queenie Vayle, though a more 
unlikely looking subject for the horrors of re- 
morse and depression did not exist. Such 
golden hair — the true dark gold color, such ap- 
pealing brown eyes, and a nose just the least bit 
retrousse to give piquancy to the face, and only 
one and twenty. 

They had considered themselves engaged ever 
since Queenie was in short frocks with a pigtail 
of gold-brown hair; and the hideous uniform of 
the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, did its 
best, though unsuccessfully, to take off from 
Reggy Vayle’s good looks and well set up, 
manly figure. Then, in order to prevent the pos- 
sibility of their ever changing their minds or 
coming across anyone they liked better than 
themselves, they were married at the end of 
Queenie’s first season, and prepared to make the 


TWO STRINGS. 


*55 


acquaintance of the world together. It was 
tempting the gods, and the usual result followed. 

Two years later Vayle’s regiment was ordered 
to India. Queenie’s baby died — the young 
mother and the ayah together muddled it to 
death ; she got fever, and the doctor packed her 
off to the hills. Reggy could get no leave. 

To the Mayo Hotel at Simree that season, 
sent up to recover himself in the cool from a 
polo accident, lame and interesting, came Cis 
Lorrimer, the ugliest fellow in the Crimson 
Cuirassiers, and the most popular and the most 
fascinating. He found himself sitting at the 
table d'hote next Mrs. Vayle, and he forthwith 
took her under his charge. She was so new to 
India, to life in general, and such a refreshing 
change from most of Cis’s female friends. 
Queenie’s silly little head was soon perfectly 
turned by the attentions of a hero such as she 
had never met before ; a man who, when his foot 
was upon his native Piccadilly, was one of a set 
royalty affected, and whose every nod and word 
was accepted with effusion by the elite of Simree 
society. In India, where the table of precedence 
is ruled by the number of rupees drawn, a little 
flavor of real aristocracy goes a long way. 


TWO STRINGS. 


* 5 6 

Under the influence of Lorrimer, Queenie 
Vayle developed wonderfully. She had come 
to Simree a simple child ; before many weeks 
were out she was a woman — and a woman de- 
voured with the great passion of her life. The 
glamour of Lorrimer was over her; Reggy be- 
came more and more commonplace and uninter- 
esting, because so familiar; her letters to him 
fewer and fewer. 

At last, however, he got one, the penning of 
which was, of all the foolish things Queenie had 
done in her silly little life, the most foolish. She 
wrote and told him that she found she no longer 
loved him as real love goes; but, having met the 
one man in the world for her, she was off on a 
trip into Cashmere with him. She was very 
sorry, but she couldn’t help it, and hoped he 
would forgive her; or words to that effect. 

Reggy Vayle — an honest, straightforward, and 
very young Englishman, grilling away at Punkah- 
pore — did not prove of the ordinary type of 
patient, acquiescent Anglo-Indian husband, who 
calls his wife’s “bow-wow” by his Christian name 
and takes care to give a few days’ notice before 
he runs up to the hill-station on leave. 

There was a fearful scandal. Society in India 


TWO STRINGS. 


x 57 


winks at a good deal, but the law makes up for 
it by severity. The Cashmere trip had to be cut 
short; the case came on in the High Court; and 
Cis Lortimer had to sacrifice everything and 
make a bolt of it to somewhere — Japan or Aus- 
tralia. The court gave him two years and 
mulcted him handsomely. He was absent with- 
out leave, and, after the usual interval, the 
Gazette recorded that her Majesty had no further 
need of his services. 

And now another monsoon had come round 
again, and Queenie Vayle sat solitary, listening 
to the rain, utterly alone in the world. Lorrimer 
made no sign, and her family at home had cast 
her off as completely as her husband. She felt 
so utterly wretched that she would have given 
anything for a kind word from anyone. But 
women looked askance at her, for in India great 
importance is attached to the new command- 
ment — thou shalt not be found out ; and as to 
kind words from men, w r ell, it hadn’t quite come 
to that yet, though it might soon, Queenie felt. 
For life was intolerable. 

It was well-nigh intolerable to someone else, 
too — a man who had arrived that day from the 


158 TWO STRINGS. 

plains and was going on to-morrow into Cash- 
mere after big game. Reggy Vayle felt in the 
thoroughly British mood for killing something. 
He could not kill Lorrimer, for he did not know 
where he was to be found. So he was going to 
kill ibex. 

It was a mere chance that in the hotel read- 
ing-room he saw Queenie’s name in the visitor’s 
list. He had no idea she was up at Murree, and 
the shock of the surprise gave him the oddest 
impulse. The memory of Queenie rose up be- 
fore him as she had been a year before — pure, 
lovely, his own; and a great hunger came over 
the man just to see her once more, not to speak 
to her, not even to let her know he saw her — 
only to see her for the last time. . 

In the dark veranda of Queenie’s little bun- 
galow stood a tall figure, the rain running off 
his mackintosh in streams, on to the flooring. 
There was a chink between the curtains, and, by 
pressing his face against the pane, he could see 
her distinctly. The gleam of the lamp caught 
her golden head, as she sat, with hands clasped 
on her knee, gazing into the fire, looking utterly 
dejected, a lonely little figure. A great feeling 
of pity and remorse stole over Reggy. _ She 


TWO STRINGS. 


*5 9 


looked so young; he had sworn to love and to 
cherish her. Instinctively he stretched out his 
arms toward her, when — — 

A sepulchral cough sounded from the corner 
of the veranda. It was the watchman, the cho- 
kedar , who is supposed to guard each bungalow 
at night, rousing in his slumber and announcing 
his alertness. Reggy had no choice but to fly 
precipitately. 

Indian postal officials are crassness itself. 
Vayle’s servant had been to inquire for his mas- 
ter’s letters as soon as the latter had arrived at 
Murree, and they were lying on the table in his 
room when he returned from his Enoch Arden 
visit. He opened them mechanically. One 
began “My own darling Queenie,” and was 
signed “Yours, as ever, Cecil Lorrimer.” The 
address on the envelope was Mrs. Vayle, but 
neither the post-office people nor Vayle himself 
had noticed it. A check for a large sum fell 
from its folds. 

It was a good letter, and showed the writer in 
a better light than he had appeared in before. All 
being lost for both of them — for Queenie, home 
and fame; for him, his position in the world, in 
the dear old corps — Lorrimer, who had been get- 


TWO STRINGS. 


160 

ting his affairs straight, wrote to ask her to come 
out at once to Tasmania to marry him and start 
life afresh. It was a straightforward kind of 
letter, and it was more. It was a love-letter. 
Queenie had not been to him merely a toy, to be 
played with and cast aside. 

Vayle sat with the letter in his hand going 
through a great fight with himself. He had 
imagined that Queenie was utterly dead to him; 
that he had cast her off forever. But now, with 
this other man’s offer lying before him, a queer 
feeling of jealousy came over him. He saw her 
again as he had just seen her — lonely, sad, deso- 
late. He remembered her in the old years; his 
little wife, she had called herself, ever since she 
was in her teens. All her treachery was forgot- 
ten ; he felt he could not let her go. 

Lorrimer’s letter fluttered into the fire and 
curled to ashes among the logs. 

Ten minutes later Queenie starts at the sound 
of an opening door. All the windows are doors 
in India, and none are ever locked. She turns 
and shrieks, for a man stands in the veranda with 
a passionate look on his face. He is kneeling 
before her; his hands clutch hers convulsively. 
For she looks to him just the . same as she did 


TWO STRINGS. 161 

that Christmas when she blushed and told him 
she was getting too big to be kissed under the 
mistletoe — just the same^s she did in her bridal 
veil in the village church at home. 

“Darling!” he pleads hoarsely, “darling! will 
you forgive me? Will you come back to me?” 

Far away in Tasmania the other one, waiting 
and longing, is not in it. It seems so natural to 
rest her head on Reggy’s shoulder, and there lay 
down the .weary load of care and desolation 
which oppressed her, and shut out forever the 
hideous nightmare of the last few months; and 
they are remarried within a few days. 

The scene changes to the Park and white waist- 
coat weather. Cis Lorrimer, landed at Charing 
Cross that morning, stands in a quiet corner 
under the trees, with his hat tilted over his eyes, 
and sees ghosts. Ghosts of the men and women 
he has known in town before the Crimsons sailed 
for India five years ago. Men grown stout, 
women gone off ; men grown bald, women with 
unmistakably increased hair. Frocks new and 
wonderful; a new curve in a hat brim. Familiar 
forms; strange faces. But there, flitting down, 
chatting gayly to nice-looking women, a well- 


162 


TWO STRINGS . 


remembered face with golden hair, but looking 
happier, more peaceful, than when he saw it last. 

He watches her across the Row and put into a 
hansom at the corner by her friends. Then he 
jumps into another and follows it to Gargantuan 
Mansions. 

That evening, when the sunlight, darkened by 
the awning over the balcony, casts deep shadows 
in the little drawing room of the flat, Queenie 
Vayle sits alone, toying with her tea. . 

There is an electric ring, a footstep in the tiny 
passage, and a voice — well remembered — speak- 
ing, makes Queenie start to her feet. 

The maid, without a word, is showing someone 
into the dim room. Hands are held out toward 
her. 

“Queenie! Queenie! at last I have found 
you !” 

She gives a low cry of pain and half turns 
away. 

“Won’t you speak to me? You never an- 
swered. Speak to me now; do, Queenie. I’m 
doing well ; a different fellow ; and — and — I want 
you, Queenie.’’ 

She looks up at him for a few moments, and 
then a light breaks upon her. 


TWO STRINGS. 


163 


She motions him away. 

“You mustn’t speak like that, Cis. It can’t 
be! It is all over !” 

His face grows hard and set suddenly, as if he 
had been struck a blow. 

“What do you mean, Queenie? Has anyone 
come between us? Good God !” 

She moves to the door that divides the draw- 
ing-room from the little dining-room and opens it 
very softly. 

There is an odor of tobacco about the room, 
and Reggy Vayle lies back in an armchair enjoy- 
ing an ante-prandial nap and snoring slightly. 

“Yes,” she says, pointing to him, “someone 
has — my husband !’’ 

She crosses the room on tiptoe and, bending 
her fair head over the back of his chair, kisses 
him lightly on the forehead. 

When she goes back to the drawing-room it is 
empty. 

Everyone knows how Cis Lorrimer, late of the 
Crimson Cuirassiers, got into the Mounted Infan- 
try in Eygpt and was killed at the Ghazi Dhru 
Wells business. 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 


Mrs. SPLATTER was the biggest lady in the 
Anglo-Indian station of Noluck. I am not, of 
course, alluding to her corporeal size, though that 
too was worthy of note, but to her social posi- 
tion. She was, to use the native term applied 
to her and her ilk, the “burra mem” or big woman. 

What matters that the progenitors of her 
lesser half (“my husband the Commissioner,” as 
she was always careful to designate him) were 
not unconnected with a hosiery shop in St. 
James’s Street, and that her own parents owned 
a crockery establishment in the Strand? In No- 
luck, East Indies, such are the stern rules of 
official precedence, Mrs. Splatter went in to din- 
ner before everybody else. 

Mr. Commissioner Splatter was a man of a 
Mosaic temperament, and, though he ruled hun- 
dreds of thousands of her Imperial Majesty’s 
dusky subjects scattered over an area as large 

164 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 165 

as an English county, Mrs. Splatter governed 
him. 

The eldest child of the Splatter pair was Ella, 
a winsome little person of seventeen. She had 
just “come out” (in India girls do indeed come 
out) per steamship Honolulu , like European 
goods, to enliven the somewhat severe commis- 
sionorial residence, a huge, whitewashed, double- 
storied bungalow, shut in with verandas so as to 
render the windows almost invisible, and stand- 
ing in a square yard, yclept a garden, and fringed 
with the mud huts of the tribe of red-coated 
retainers who loafed on the broad flight of steps. 

Ella “took after” her papa, as the nurses say. 
She had no very decided opinions or characteris- 
tics — an excellent thing, both in a young lady 
and in a senior member of the Civil Service. 
But it was certainly from neither parent that she 
got her fresh English beauty and cheery, girlish 
ways. 

Ella had been conveyed to India under the 
unimpeachable chaperonage of Mrs. Lynx, whose 
husband was civil surgeon at Noluck, and to 
whose care Mrs. Splatter unhesitatingly intrusted 
her daughter. But the best-laid plans of mice 
and mothers often deviate from the straight line, 


1 66 


A MODERN L0CH1NVAR. 


and certainly Mrs. Splatter had not forseen that, 
owing to Mrs. Lynx being laid on her back with 
a sprained ankle for the greater part of the voy- 
age, Miss Ella would be free to make and to 
cultivate pretty extensively the fascinating ac- 
quaintance of Lieutenant George Eston, of the 
130th Foot, without a penny beyond his pay. 
How he allowed pretty Ella to leave the ship 
without proposing to her might well be a puzzle 
to any man who had looked into her blue eyes. 
But probably young Bridges, the engineer, had 
something to do with it. He was perpetually 
coming up and flushing the couple when Eston, 
in a cosy corner, was about to say something 
irretrievable. 

In the short twilight of a spring evening (In- 
dian days are much of a muchness as regards 
length, and the blind man’s holiday is short), 
Mrs. Splatter sat in the reading-room of the No- 
luck Club, laying down the law to a representa- 
tive gathering of Noluck female society. The 
Chutter Munzil) profanely dubbed the Chatter 
Munzil) is a decayed royal palace of stucco on 
the evil-smelling banks of a torpid river. Like 
most Indian clubs, it has one room thrown open 
to ladies, where they may peruse the Queen and 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 


167 


the picture papers, and discuss the far more 
absorbing topics of local scandal and domestic 
grievances. 

Outside on the terrace a long line of patient 
carriages awaited their mistresses and masters. 
The grooms were mostly engaged in lighting the 
lamps as the darkness fell, while from the club 
came a click of billiard-balls and. a popping of 
corks. 

Weary of the endless stories of the frisky ways 
of Mrs. Frayle, or of the impertinence of Mrs. 
Paynter, the wife of the colonel of the Lancer 
regiment quartered in the cantonments, or of the 
peculations of cooks, and tired of papers three 
weeks old, the bloom of whose contents had 
been rubbed oh by telegrams, Ella left her 
mother and Mrs. Colonel de Ferret deep in con- 
fab, and strayed on to the steps outside the open 
French windows. The tom-toms and cow-horns 
which had beaten to evening prayers were 
hushed in the teeming native city, and a subtle 
odor of objectionable smoke crept over the land, 
and announced that the mild Hindoo was cook- 
ing his evening meal. Suddenly the four-in-hand 
brake of the Lancers drove up on to the terrace 
with a dash, and a bevy of white-breeched and 


i68 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 


booted and spurred polo players hied them into 
the club. But one came along to the reading- 
room and peeped in cautiously. After looking 
round the group of ladies he turned away, and in 
so doing brushed against Ella in the darkness. 

“Beg your pardon, I’m sure,” he murmured, 
raising his cap. Ella started and hesitated a 
minute. It was so dark that she might be mis- 
taken in the voice. Then she made a bold shot. 

“Good-evening, Mr. Eston,” and in another 
minute they were telling all the news they had 
bottled up for each other since they had parted 
at Bombay. What an age it seemed! Yet it 
was only a month ago. 

They had not half finished when it grew raw 
and cold on the riverside, and Mrs. Splatter was 
heard within, about to depart, and beginning her 
last words. 

“I must fly — there’s mamma coming!’’ whis- 
pered Ella. “When shall I see you again?” 

“When you like,” answered he. 

“Oh! not till then?” she replied, with a be- 
witching smile, which betrayed her ironical tone, 
and took shelter under her mother’s wing. 

With great presence of mind Eston advanced 
and called up the carriage. The open landau 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 169 

drew up, driven by a native coachman in a dark 
tunic over his skin-tight white cotton trousers, 
and who held the reins on a level with his nose. 
Two grooms, dressed to match him, clung on to 
the back of the carriage, armed with yak-tail fly- 
whisks, and rushed to open the door. Eston 
helped the ladies in, and Mrs. Splatter, who mis- 
took him in the dark for someone else, was very 
affable. 

“Who is that young man?” inquired the lady, 
as they rumbled off to 'the Civil Lines. “I 
thought at first it was Mr. Cramwell.” (Mr. 
Cramwell was the unmarried joint-magistrate.) 

But when Ella explained that it was only a 
common or garden subaltern, whom she had met 
on board ship, and who was staying with a friend 
in the 131st in cantonments, Mrs. Splatter sniffed 
scornfully. In virtue of her exalted position as 
the wife of one of the “senior” heaven-born, Mrs. 
Splatter abhorred what she termed the military. 
A rising young civil servant, worth three hun- 
dred a year dead or alive, was of more value in 
her sight than many soldiers with curled mus- 
taches and bravery of gold lace and spurs. She 
gave Ella forthwith to understand as much, and 
the latter’s spirits, which had risen so ridicu- 


170 


A MODERN LO CHIN VAR. 


lously at the unexpected rencontre with Eston, 
promptly sank to zero. 

Next morning, at the orthodox calling hour, 
between twelve and two, Mr. Eston sent in his 
card for Mrs. Splatter by one of the red-coated 
retainers on the steps. Then he followed it into 
the large drawing-room, furnished with real Eng- 
lish upholstered tables and sofas. But the great 
lady was distinctly frigid, and other callers, of 
more importance than a subaltern, engrossed her 
attention. Poor Eston hardly got in a few 
words alone to Ella, before a further batch of 
visitors caused him to beat a precipitate retreat. 

Nevertheless something must have been ar- 
ranged between them, for next day he joined 
Ella in her morning ride up the shady Mall, and 
they had a gallop together round the race 
course, the only soft going in all Noluck, and 
that a littered course. Ella looked pretty even 
under her hideous white sun-helmet, and Eston 
blessed the Indian custom by which grooms pur- 
sue their mistresses on foot only. Of course, as 
they were going to ride at a good pace, it was 
only humane to dispense with the services of the 
white-robed attendant and bid him await their 
return. 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 17 1 

No doubt it was exceedingly wrong of Ella to 
be riding about alone thus with a decided detri- 
mental, all unbeknown to her mother, while the 
latter was occupied with domestic cares, such as 
giving out the stores, checking the cook’s ac- 
counts, and counting over the dirty dusters. 
But in the first place, even had Mrs. Splatter 
been - able to chaperone her daughter on horse- 
back, she would, indeed, have needed a weight- 
carrier; and, in the second, the Anglo-Indian 
system of bringing up children away from their 
parents is hardly conducive to much sympathy 
and confidence, and Mrs. Splatter was hardly the 
mother to elicit much of the latter. 

Eston had only ten days’ leave, and he was 
not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. 

About 6.30 A. M. one deliciously fresh morning 
(the days were growing perceptibly hotter), all 
among the glowing bouganvillias and alamandas 
of the fort gardens, haunted with sad memories 
of British heroism, he told Ella what she had 
guessed already, the while sapient crows croaked " 
at them from the mango branches, and shrill green 
parrots jeered at them as they shrieked past like a 
streak of green lightning. But the doves cooed to 
them sympathetically from the peepul trees. 


172 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 


But, alas for the course of true love ! The 
upshot of that, sweet morning’s compact was a 
stormy interview between Ella and her mother, 
which sent the latter to bed with a headache and 
tears. 

When Eston arrived at noon to see the com- 
missioner, he was met by the stern remark that, 
in Anglo-Indian parlance, the door was shut, and 
in the evening Mrs. Splatter and Ella cut him 
dead as they passed him on the Mall in their 
afternoon drive. He noticed Ella’s eyes were 
red. 

Next day was Sunday, and the last day of 
Eston’s leave. In accordance with the conven- 
ient Indian custom that runs all the expresses at 
night, and so materially lengthens one’s exist- 
ence, Eston was to rejoin his regiment by that 
evening’s mail train. But he felt he could not 
leave without seeing Ella once more. So he did a 
thing he could never remember doing except 
when with the regiment and on duty since he left 
Harrow, and that was — going to church. 

He was rewarded. Ella sat in the front seat, 
the commissioner’s. Eston secured one at right- 
angles to her, and thus turned Mrs. Splatter’s 
flank. But when one is a “burra mem,” and sits 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR . 


173 


in the uppermost seats in the synagogue, one 
must be very devout. So the latter lady missed 
a great deal of the eye telegraphy which went on 
between the lovers all service time. 

The weather was getting hot; white-frilled 
punkahs were swaying methodically, pulled by 
heathen in the veranda, over a congregation con- 
sisting of a sprinkling of black-coated civilians 
and their families, a fringe of whitey-brown clerks 
and shopkeepers, and a brilliant patch of soldiers 
in divers uniforms, who had marched to the very 
church doors with their bands playing joyous 
melodies. These infantry, as usual, ever since 
the outbreak of the Mutiny at Meerut while the 
troops were in church, had each man his rifle 
resting in the book-shelf before him. Even the 
chaplain fanned himself languidly as he began a 
long-winded discourse which, combined with the 
punkahs and the early hour (church began at 8 
A. M. now), soon sent Eston off into a half-waking 
dream, not unconnected with a church in which 
Ella played a prominent part. So sleepy was he 
that when, at the conclusion of the service, the 
soldier who did verger came round with the alms- 
bag and offered him one of those little tickets 
whereon is tp be inscribed the amount of the 


174 A MODERN LOCHINVAR . 

donation — as no one carries any coin in India — 
Eston clean forgot where he was, and, hastily 
snatching the proffered pencil, wrote quickly, 
with hazy recollections of the club: 

“One whisky and soda. G. Eston, Lieut., 
130th.” 

Shortly after Eston’s departure Mrs. Splatter 
carried off Ella to the neighboring hill-station of 
Simree for the hot-weather months. Old Splat- 
ter remained behind at work, enjoying his whist 
and billiards at the club, as he never got enough 
of them when under conjugal surveillance. 

Cramwell, too, the rising young civilian, was 
off to the hills. The fickle goddess of promotion 
had marked him for her own. He was caught 
up into the seventh heaven of the Local Govern- 
ment, and Noluck hot weathers would know him 
no more. En revanche , Rose Cottage, the little 
chalet wherein Mrs. Splatter had planted herself 
among the rhododendrons, became very familiar 
with his presence, and his attentions to Ella 
became daily more marked. Mrs. Splatter 
smiled upon his suit, and probably no one would 
have had any objections to make to the affair, if 
Cramwell had not been an out-and-out red-haired 
gad of the first water, probably “riz” in a Scotch 


A MODERN lochinvar . X 75 * 

grammar school and with no manners whatever, 
while Ella was quite the prettiest girl that season 
at Simree. 

By way of setting in motion the mill-wheel 
round of gayeties which engross the frivolous 
mind of the mountain Capua, the august hostess 
of Government House issued invitations for a 
fancy ball on the Queen’s Birthday. Forthwith 
the feminine mind became much exercised as to 
costumes, and in every veranda sat a cross-legged 
native tailor, stitching away at fancy dresses, 
which he held with his toes. It was to be a tre- 
mendous function, and rumor even whispered 
that Mrs. General Money, the best-dressed wom- 
an in Simree, had telegraphed to Paris for a dress 
to eclipse everyone else’s. 

In the midst of all this excitement, who should 
turn up at the Empire Hotel a few days before 
the ball but George Eston. Regardless of the 
envenomed glance shot at him by Mrs. Splatter 
when he ran against her in the Assembly Rooms 
at an afternoon concert, he went off straightway 
to Messrs. Sharpe & Dunn, the English tailors. 
From among the chaos on their workroom floor 
he had picked out for him Mr. Cramwell’s fancy 
dress and immediately ordered for himself the 


* 7 ^ A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 

exact counterpart, bribing Messrs. S. & D. to 
solemn secrecy. 

Mr. Cramwell, after much cogitation, had de- 
cided to disguise his red head in the gray locks 
and venerable beard of a monk, while a flowing 
black robe girt with a hempen cord was to veil 
his manly form. George Eston did exactly the 
same; and when the Simree world found them- 
selves — a motley crew — assembled under the 
gubernatorial chandeliers, there was not a pin to 
choose between the two monks. In fact, every- 
one imagined that it was one and the same 
ascetic prowling about in two places at once, 
except a few who, as the evening wore on, imag- 
ined they saw double. No one was more taken 
in than Mrs. Splatter, whose argus eye was con- 
tinually spying her daughter sitting out in dim 
corners with the unsaintly anchorite, and who 
gloated over the sight. 

She was jubilant, indeed, when at the close of 
the entertainment her six panting bearers depos- 
ited her in her “jampan” in the veranda of Rose 
Cottage. The Lieutenant-Governor’s supper had 
been excellent, and to it she had done ample 
justice. True, that a “senoirer” lady than her- 
self had been taken in by the Great Panjandrum 


A MODERN LOCH INVAR . 177 

himself to the solemn, sit-down, square meal 
which is such an important feature in an Indian 
ball. But he had honored Mrs. Splatter with a 
quadrille. So she turned to Ella effusively: 

“Well, my dear, and how have you enjoyed 
yourself?” 

“Awfully, mamma!” 

“And how did you get on with — with him? 
Did he say anything, Ella?” 

Ella’s long lashes drooped over eyes, and her 
very neck and shoulders blushed. 

“Well — yes — mamma.” 

“Dear child ! I am pleased ! But I won’t 
bother you at this time of night. Go and get 
some beauty sleep, and tell me everything in the 
morning.” 

Ella turned away hanging her head. But at 
the door of her room she came back again. 

“Mamma, won’t you kiss me?” 

Mrs. Splatter folded her to her capacious 
bosom. But next morning, while the “burra 
mem” was still wrapped in slumber, dreaming 
sweet dreams of pat / de foie gras and a seat on 
the Legislative Council for her lesser half, a 
tonga might have been seen whirling away down 
the road to the plains as fast as a pair of gallop- 


i 7 8 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR . 


ing ponies could draw it. Under the hood, on 
the back seat, sat Eston and Ella. 

The sun rose brilliantly from behind the forest- 
clad mountains, as they tore down the zigzags, 
round sharp curves, above overhanging preci- 
pices, through deep gorges. Torrents roared 
unseen in the ravines, and waterfalls answered 
them from the crags above. The koel boomed 
its cuckoo-like note across the valley, and cow- 
bells tinkled from upland pastures. Patches of 
rosy rhododendrons dyed the hillsides crimson. 
At the sound of the blast of the coachman’s 
horn, long trains of heavily laden bullock-wagons 
crept out of the way of the clattering tonga, 
which a fresh pair of ponies every five miles car- 
ried farther and farther away from parental 
ire. 

Little Mrs. Grey, the wife of a captain in 
Eston’s regiment, sat in the evening of that day 
in her veranda trying to feel cool after her even- 
ing drive in the furnace-like atmosphere of 
Guramghur. Of course she might have been 
away amusing herself in the hills, but her Char- 
ley could not get leave, and so, as she put it, she 
meant to "‘stick it out” with him. Great was her 


A MODERN LOCH INVAR. 179 

surprise to see a station gharry drive up, from 
which emerged Eston. 

“1 thought you were up at Simree?” was her 
greeting. 

“So I was. Mrs. Grey, will you do something 
for me?” 

He led her into the drawing-room, with such 
an unusual expression of triumphant anxiety 
blended on his face that Mrs. Grey asked herself 
if he had either come to grief in some way, or 
been made A. D. C. up at Simree. But Eston 
was a great friend of the Greys, and in his need 
he had not counted on them in vain. After a 
very short explanation, the little woman ran 
down the steps and, opening the carriage-door, 
helped Ella out. The latter, after a minute’s 
hesitation, flung herself in Mrs. Grey’s arms, and 
Mrs. Grey kissed the sweet little face, where the 
smiles struggled with the tears. 

“And now,” remarked Eston, when this emi' 
nently feminine performance was concluded, 
“I’m off to see the padreE 

They were married next morning in the white- 
washed barn which did duty for a church at 
Guramghur— married quite early, while yet the 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 


i8o 

barracks were astir with the usual matutinal 
bustle and noisy with bugle-calls, while people 
were going for the before-breakfast rides, and 
ere the morning mail-train sauntered into Guram- 
ghur station. 

In it came Mr. and Mrs. Splatter, the former 
armed with a thick stick, and the latter, woman- 
like, with her daughter’s clothes. But they came 
too late. When they entered the Greys’ break- 
fast-room, Ella was Mrs. Eston. 

After a preliminary outburst everyone decided 
to make the best of everything, and Splatter ptre 
et m^re returned next day to Simree, without 
their daughter, bearing with them a grain of com- 
fort in the knowledge that, though their son-in- 
law might be penniless, yet he was the nephew 
of a real baronet. The thought of her child’s 
uncle-in-law somewhat consoled Mrs. Splatter 
when, later on in the season, Cramwell became 
engaged to the decidedly plain daughter of her 
great rival, the Commissioneress of Todiabad. 
At any rate, it gave her something to enlarge 
upon, when the latter lady condoled with her in 
such an irritating manner. 

But through the scorching hot weather and the 
drenching monsoon which followed, Ella never 


A MODERN LOCHINVAR. 181 

grumbled over her dinner of herbs in the little 
thatched bungalow, or sighed for the stalled ox 
and the luxury of a thermantidote in the Com- 
missioner’s mansion at Noluck. What matters it 
if a subaltern’s pay does not go far? Are not 
the banks of India a refuge for the destitute? 
And little reck young lovers of heavy interest 
and a day of reckoning. What matters the 
lively mosquito, the maddening prickly heat, the 
thermometer at ninety-something, or the rains 
coming down and making life one long Turkish 
bath, or coming through and necessitating an 
umbrella in bed, while reptiles and insects find a 
happy home in the room? Certainly the rainy 
season in the plains is hardly a joyous one, and 
yet Ella and Eston were ridiculously happy. 

But with the clearer skies of returning sun- 
shine of September a vague dread spread 
through Guramghur. The cholera-fiend hovered 
over the native city, and struck down his victims 
in the crowded jail and the busy bazaar. He 
stretched his sword over cantonments, and the 
troops fled before him into cholera-camp, with 
their bands playing, it is true, but leaving some 
of their number behind them in hospital. 

He spared not the Eston’s little thatched bun- 


I §2 A MODERN 10CHINVAR. 

galow. Thence, one evening, all that was mortal 
of Ella was borne on a gun-carriage down the 
Mall, along which she had cantered so gayly only 
the day before, and laid to rest in the little 
white-walled cemetery, crowded with nameless 
soldiers’ graves and thick with children’s 
mounds. 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


“They’re in, old man ! I’ll be hanged if 
they’re not !” 

This was Captain Cartridge’s remark to Shot- 
well, and puzzled me somewhat, as I lay half 
asleep in a long lounging chair in the ante-room, 
with my feet raised higher than my head on the 
broad elongated arms. 

What were in? I asked myself sleepily. It 
could not be the letters, for it was yesterday that 
I had received Messrs. Lappel & Son’s polite 
and patient “to account rendered,” from far 
away Bond Street. It could not be charming 
Mrs. Dashington and her pretty sister, *the only 
women worth speaking to in the station, for 
everyone knew that Shotwell and Cartridge had 
a soul above paying calls. 

Only a month before H. M. troopship Alliga- 
tor had disgorged me at Bombay, and my evil 
star and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway had 
>83 


184 


MY FIRS 7' SNIPE. 


led me to join my regiment at the small and 
remote station of Guramghur. Talk of a one- 
horse place: Guramghur was only a one-pony 
place, for we were but a poor infantry corps 
without the wherewithal to spend on polo or 
pig-sticking, or even paper-chasing; and one 
“tat” wherewith to canter to and from mess, and 
to drive in our bamboo carts, satisfied our mod- 
est aspirations. We wanted but little in the way 
of horseflesh at Guramghur, but, in the case of 
Colonel Cormorant, who weighed over sixteen 
stone, we wanted that little strong. No, there 
was nothing to recommend Guramghur — no soci- 
ety, very little work, as we were the only troops, 
and but for the society of the Dashingtons, I 
must have been bored to death. But this is a 
digression. 

Inquiry on my part elicited the information 
from Shotwell that it was the snipe that formed 
the topic of their conversation. How dense of 
me ! As if when Shotwell and Cartridge got 
together they ever talked of anything else but 
killing something. All the same, we were proud 
of our two crack shots, for I fear we were rather 
a “dog and walking-stick” regiment, and we 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 185 

would descant on their wonderful bags to other 
non-sporting characters. 

Shotwell added kindly: “You should go out 
and have a try at the snipe, my boy; finest 
sport out !” 

My ambition was fired. So they had arrived, 
these mysterious birds of passage, winging their 
way from far northern steppes over pathless 
snows, to alight for a few days in some quiet 
morass on monotonous Indian levels, ere they 
sped on again, no one knows whither. Did I not 
possess a brand-new gun that had never yet left 
its case? I would sally forth and deal death and 
destruction among the snipe, and astonish Mrs. 
Dashington by sending her in a dish of them for 
dinner. 

Returning to my bungalow I ordered my 
bearer to bring before me some trustworthy 
“shikari” who would lead my infant footsteps in 
the way in which they should go — after snipe. 
He arrived, and except that he was a trifle less 
clothed and more unkempt than the usual run 
of natives, there was nothing to denote especial 
woodcraft about him. After a three-cornered 
conversation between the “shikari,” the bearer, 


1 86 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


and myself, and a prodigious amount of misun- 
derstanding, it was arranged that on the morrow 
I was to shoot the Paniput Jheel, where the 
snipe were as thick as mosquitoes. 

It was dawn when my bearer succeeded in the, 
to him, dangerous task of waking me. The air 
was chill with the welcome and delicious crisp- 
ness of the cold weather. No one seemed astir 
except the crows, who cawed monotonously in 
the branches, and even the “chokedar,” or pri- 
vate watchman — the ostensible protector of our 
lives and property — was still asleep in a corner 
of the veranda. In the shafts of the cart stand- 
ing by the steps was the “slave,” a most useful 
gray pony, with no particular faults except that 
of an inveterate habit of jibbing at starting, and 
of such a vicious temper that no one except his 
own “syce” could approach within two yards of 
him in the stable. After the usual prelude of 
whacking and pushing the wheels and reviling 
the animal’s maternal ancestors, we at length 
made a start, my new gun resting carefully 
against the seat by my side. “Reveille” was 
sounding in barracks, and a few natives wrapped, 
corpse-like, in their sheets were flitting down the 
misty Mall. A jackal, returning home from his 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


187 


nocturnal prowl, stole across the road. Once 
outside • cantonments and bowling along the 
straight white road, a perpetual excitement was 
kept up by our meeting trains of bullock carts 
laden with bales of cotton for the railway. As 
the drivers were mostly asleep on the summit of 
their loads, with their blankets well wrapped 
over their ears, it required a good deal of vehe- 
mence on mine and the syce’s part before they 
could be induced to prod the lethargic bullocks 
out of my way into the deep dust on either side 
the road. 

At the sixth milestone of the monotonous, 
tree-bordered road, whose only variety was an 
occasional collection of mud huts or a mango 
grove, I found the shikari squatting on his 
haunches in the dust, and looking somewhat 
cold. Here I left the cart, and shouldering my 
gun, started off toward the jheel, across fields 
of low green bushes of “dal,” acrqss carefully 
tilled little patches of rising corn, and skirting 
tall crops of millet and sugarcane, over a sun- 
baked plain. Presently the ground fell slightly, 
and became cracked and caked like dried mud. 
My guide stopped short, and appeared bewil- 
dered. With some difficulty, I gathered from 


1 88 my first snipe. 

him that this was where he had expected to find 
the jheel, but that the water had mysteriously 
vanished, God only knew where, and with it the 
snipe. 

Short as had been my residence in the coun- 
try, my faith in the wild Hindoo had already 
received several fearful shocks. I, therefore, 
approached the shikari with alarming menaces 
of corporal punishment, and — despite his entreat- 
ies and asseverations that he knew no more of the 
whereabouts of the jheel than did I, “His High- 
ness, the protector ‘of the poor, his father, and his 
mother,” all rolled into one — informed the “son 
of a pig” that this was not Paniput Jheel, and 
that if he didn’t take me there sharp it would be 
the worse for him. 

This ebullition had the desired result. Re- 
suming our march, we very shortly came on a 
tangled mixture of mud and morass, swamp and 
sedge, with here and there a thorn bush or a 
clump of high grass stretching as far as the eye 
could see in a long serpentine line. 

Forthwith from our rear the shikari evoked 
four coolies who had been stalking solemnly 
behind us wrapped in dirty sheets. These 
formed a line, with myself in the middle, and we 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


189 


started beating along the sedge and water on the 
edge of the swamp. The sun was now well 
above the horizon and had a good deal of power; 
the air was dead still. 

Suddenly from out of a tussock of grass right 
in front of me, with a wild cry, like the creaking 
of an unoiled lock, rose a bird, ridiculously small 
to expect one to shoot. When I add that in- 
stead of giving one a chance by flying straight 
and fair it made three distinct twists, the reader 
will not be surprised to hear that it got away 
scot-free. 

There was indeed no doubt about the snipe 
being in, and I only wished my eye had been the 
same. Now in wisps of four or five, rising 
together like a rocket and scattering like fire- 
works; now singly, sometimes at one’s feet and 
sometimes out of shot, they went up in all di- 
rections. Still everyone escaped me. The sun 
grew hotter. My feet and legs were soaked. 
My temper did not improve, but the snipes’ 
chances did. The shikari accompanied my 
misses with malapropos observations as to when 
to fire, which made me feel inclined to slay him. 

But at last came a proud moment. One bird, 
with evidently better feeling than the others, 


/ 


190 MY FIRST SNIPE. 

rose well within shot, and, with a subdued twit- 
ter, made off slow and straight. The next min- 
ute he fell dead, and a coolie promptly retrieved 
him out of the water. A poor thing — after such 
an expenditure of time and walking and cart- 
ridges — but mine own. I gazed lovingly at the 
long-billed trophy ere I hung him by the neck 
on the gamestick. 

The discharge of a gun not far off startled 
me, and to my intense astonishment I beheld 
Shotwell and Cartridge emerge from behind a 
patch of elephant grass. Their greetings were 
warm, but hardly cordial. 

“You’re a nice sort of chap! What do you 
mean by coming out on to our jheel?” 

“I’m very sorry,” I began, “I had no idea that 
in this country any of the shooting was pri- 
vate ” 

‘‘Bless the boy! I don’t mean that. But the 
shikari ought to have known better. He knows 

we keep this jheel snug ” And Cartridge 

made for the shikari, who fled. 

I interposed, for a light seemed to dawn upon 
me. 

“Hold hard, Cartridge; now I think of it, he 
was not at all anxious for me to come here. He 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


191 

tried to put me off with a dried-up place across 
the hill.” 

Cartridge laughed. My innocence was so pal- 
pable. 

“Well, and what have you got? You have 
been blazing away enough to scare every snipe 
out of the country.” 

Triumphantly I pointed to the gamestick, but 
to my mortification evoked a roar of laughter 
from my brother officers. 

“Why, man, that’s not a snipe at all! That’s 
a snippet, look at its white breast !” 

And they both seemed so amused that I got 
proportionately annoyed — for after all one is not 
born a snipe-shot — and I was not sorry to find 
subsequently that my battue had so disturbed 
the jheel, that the two professors were unable to 
get near a bird, and were forced to give it up and 
beat a retreat homeward. 

Cartridge and Shotwell lived in a bungalow 
next mine. As, later in the day, I was emerging 
soothed and amiable from a warm tub, a shot 
from their veranda startled the gray squirrels in 
mine. Looking out of the bathroom door I per- 
ceived the two again intensely amused over 
something. Their mirth was irritating. 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


192 

At dinner time at mess the story of my first 
day's snipe shooting went gayly round, with 
embroideries various. Especially it seemed to 
tickle Fitzdangle (he is such a fool, anything will 
amuse him), who had made use of my absence to 
go over and lunch with the Dashingtons. 

But Cartridge patted me on the back. 

“Never mind, my boy, you’ll do better next 
time! And I’ve told them to serve you for 
breakfast with one of the few snipe we really did 
kill, that you may see what it tastes like.” 

Next morning I came in late to breakfast, for 
I was stiff and tired with my walk and my wet- 
ting. The table was full of fellows, while others 
presently lounged in as if expecting something. 

My promised snipe, a plump little carcass 
mounted on fried toast, was brought in solemnly 
by the mess-sergeant himself. General interest 
was evinced as I ate it, and when it was finished 
everyone wished to know how I liked it. I 
remarked it was very well cooked, but rather dry 
and bitter. Fitzdangle sniggered again. 

But at lunch Cartridge shouted across the 
table : 

“Well, and so you liked the hoo-poo?” 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


193 


‘‘What hoo-poo?” 

“The hoo-poo you ate for breakfast, thinking 
it was a snipe. Shotwell shot it in our garden, 
and we had it most carefully plucked and 
cooked !” 

To this day the sight of one of those jaunty 
little birds, with its nodding perky crest, running 
about the garden, reminds me very unpleasantly 
of my exceedingly, mauvais quart cTheure of chaff 
which followed Cartridge’s disclosure. 

However, to do him and Shotwell justice, I 
must relate that in order to encourage the young 
idea, they took me out the following week to 
Paniput Jheel again. We made a splendid bag 
(Cartridge shooting four birds with a right and 
left shot) of thirty couple, to which, however, I 
must confess, though the snipe rose steadier and 
flew straighter, I only contributed the modest 
quota of five. 

Nevertheless, I went home in such good spirits 
that I couldn’t resist, as I dressed for mess, 
shouting across to the doctor, with whom I share 
my bungalow, to ask him why my tailor Lappel 
was like a snipe. 

Of course he gave it up, for the doctor is a 


194 


MY FIRST SNIPE. 


Scotchman and a “carefu’ mon” in money mat- 
ters, but other people besides an impecunious 
subaltern will have no difficulty in perceiving 
that the similarity lies in their both having long 
bills. 


MRS. DIMPLE’S VICTIM. 


The hounds met at the Fox Inn, Nether- 
combe, and all the village was astir. Nether- 
combe was very proud of its gorse, which was 
warranted from time immemorial to hold a fox. 
One by one, then in twos and threes, red coats 
and black, dog-carts and broughams, came down 
the village street and congregated in front of the 
inn, where mine host was drawing his best March 
ale vigorously. Then there was a flutter, and 
the huntsman and the whips, with the pack at 
their heels, were made way for by the crowd, and 
halted under the sign-board. 

There was a brief law for the late-comers, filled 
in by greeting and chatting, and the Master led 
the way over the brow of the hill toward Nether- 
combe Gorse. 

The last of the field was disappearing up the 
lane, leaving only a few second horsemen and 
hangers-on under the sign-board, when a smart 


*95 


196 MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 

dog-cart rattled up and its two occupants, hastily 
throwing away the ends of their cigars, and 
divesting themselves of their box-coats, shouted 
for their horses. 

The tall slim man with the fair mustache was 
Godfrey Okeburne, of the 150th Hussars; his 
companion was a brother officer, and they had 
driven over from the depot at Alderminster. 

The hounds were already rattling a fox about 
the gorse, by the time the two later comers had 
trotted up the muddy lane to the corner by the 
gate, and some of the field were industriously 
pounding up and down the rides, to the intense 
annoyance of the Master and his subordinates, as 
well as of Reynard. 

At last, however, this latter succeeded, in elud- 
ing them, and in sneaking off unperceived, till he 
was viewed away by a shepherd near whose hut 
he had incautiously ventured. 

In another minute the hounds were put on the 
scent, and the whole field was squeezing through 
a gate and down a pasture, as if their lives de- 
pended on it. 

Well to the front rode Okeburne, but the 
chestnut was fresh and hot, and had got her head 
up unpleasantly. She hurried at the first fence, 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 197 

taking it too much in her stride. At the next, a 
tall big bull-finch, with a deep ditch and a bank 
on the near side, she went with a rush. How 
she landed or rather did not land, no one ever 
could tell, for the next moment she was lying a 
struggling mass at the bottom of the ditch, with 
her back broken and her rider under her. 

“Take ’un to the Vicarage, there’s nowhere 
else for ’un to be took, and no doctor within five 
mile,’’ quoth Chawbacon, who advanced with a 
timely hurdle, as Okeburne was dragged from 
under his horse, unconscious, and with one 
booted leg dangling helpless and broken. 

So to Nethercombe Vicarage they took him. 
The Vicar was away for the day, and it was his 
daughter May who received the hurdle with its 
ghastly burden in the narrow hall. She made 
no doubt Okeburne was dead, and therefore 
there was real relief, that made the blue eyes 
dewy in her fair face, when Okeburne opened his 
eyes on it and the world a few moments after. 

His first sight of life again — for it had been a 
nasty cropper — and as such it fixed itself in his 
memory forevermore. But it was some time 
before he saw the blue eyes dewy again though. 
Five weeks he lay a helpless prisoner at the Vic- 


198 MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 

arage, mending his shattered limb, and all the 
while the blue eyes first gazed softly at him, then 
shyly, and then danced and sparkled as they 
met his. 

After the five weeks were over and the mis- 
chief was done, though the leg was nearly 
mended, Lady Marcia appeared on the scene, full 
of dignified maternal solicitude for her younger 
and troublesome son, albeit she had not thought 
it worth while to hurry back from abroad sooner 
to look after him. 

She fixed May with a stony stare, before which 
the soft blue eyes fell. 

“My nurse, mother,” said Okeburne uneasily. 

“Indeed? I am so grateful for your kindness 
to my son, but if I had had any idea how much he 
was encroaching on it, I would have moved him 
at any price ! So good of you !” 

Young and unused as she was to the world, 
May felt the sneer and the blue eyes filled. Oke- 
burne noticed it. 

That evening, in the twilight, when Lady 
Marcia had departed having made arrangements 
to send to remove her son on the morrow, May 
stood at the window of the little sitting-room and 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM . 199 

looked wistfully into the bare elm branches 
against the darkening sky. 

The rooks were cawing good-night, and the 
maid came in and fetched away the Vicar. 
Someone wanted him. May too rose to go. 

But Okeburne, who had been drinking in the 
picture of her fair face and form against the 
light, sat up in his long chair. 

“Why are you going?” 

“Have you forgotten? It’s choir practice 
night ; I must go and look up the hymns in the 
study.” 

“Come here !” 

She obeyed unwittingly. Had he not called 
her to do things for him for the last five weeks? 

The next minute she found herself a prisoner; 
his arm was round her waist. 

“Don’t, Captain Okeburne — you’ll hurt your 
leg — sit down ” 

“Then sit here on the floor by me, darling! 
It’s our last evening, and I’ve something to tell 
you — but I think you know it already — eh?” 

Three months later Captain and Mrs. Oke- 
burne had left the depot and embarked to join 


2-00 


MRS. DIMPLE’S VICTIM. 


the regiment in India. Lady Marcia had for- 
given them, and given them — her blessing. As 
for any increased allowance, it was not to be 
thought of. Godfrey had already run through 
more money than any ‘of the boys, and if he 
chose to marry a girl without a penny, well, he 
must just go back and soldier in India again. 
Anyhow, it was something to get him married; 
it might steady him, though what he could see, 
etc., etc. 

And that was just the verdict of the 150th 
when they saw Mrs. Okeburne. Certainly mar- 
riage did steady Okeburne, at first. Perhaps the 
fact that the dashing 150th happened to be at a 
very remote station, where there was absolutely 
nothing to be done except pig-sticking, helped 
toward his improvement. In any case, May was 
altogether happy. 

But the month after which she was named 
came on apace in all its sultriness, and played 
havoc with her fresh English complexion, her 
sparkling eyes, and her spirits. Simultaneously 
Okeburne, whose curse in life had always been 
that he wanted so much amusing, found the even 
tenor of domestic life, which had been so sweet 
in its complete novelty, pall upon him. He felt 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 


201 


positively relieved when the doctor ordered his 
wife up to the hills. 

Okeburne escorted her thither, and one even- 
ing they arrived at Simree and put up at the 
hotel by the lake. May was much too fatigued 
to put in an appearance at dinner, and her hus- 
band went down alone. 

The first person he saw in the long dining- 
room as he scanned the lines of people at dinner 
was little Mrs. Dimple. 

Her bright black eyes greeted him mockingly. 

“Come and sit by me, dear boy. It’s ages 

since And what is this I hear, married ? Oh ! 

how could you?” 

Daisy Dimple- was the daughter of one and the 
wife of another Indian civilian. She was not 
more than five-and-twenty, and everyone had 
heard of her and her doings in every hill-station 
in the Himalayas. She never went home. What 
need? India was better fun. The only use of 
England was to supply you with clothes. In the 
hot weather she took up her abode at some hill- 
station till it got too hot for her, and in the 
cold season she flitted from station to station, 
wherever there were any balls or races or festivi- 
ties going on. 


202 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 


Dimple had some appointment somewhere. 
His great characteristic was good-naturedness. 
Daisy had been engaged to half a dozen men 
before she married Dimple at seventeen. Her 
father, in a burst of parental indignation, rushed 
the marriage on in a week, or she probably 
would never have done it. 

Wherever Mrs. Dimple moved she was fol- 
lowed by a faithful pack of “bow-wows,” some of 
many years’ standing. These she managed with 
such discretion that they never quarreled, each 
having his times and seasons, and all of them 
called Dimple “Dick.” 

Before he went home Godfrey Okeburne had 
been one of the “pack” and a favored member. 

He had not been up at Simree again for ten 
days (which May spent chiefly in bed, with fever 
brought on by the journey) before he was again 
enrolled in the faithful cohort by little Mrs. 
Dimple. 

Bacchus taking the chair at a temperance 
meeting, a pterodactyl among the water-fowl in 
St. James’s Park, or the inmate of a Turkish 
harem lecturing on the rights of women could 
not have been more out of place than the poor 
child from Nethercombe Vicarage was at Sim- 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM . 


203 


rec. It is always the naughtiest of hill-stations, 
and that year, owing to the presence of Mrs. 
Dimple and others of her ilk, it surpassed itself. 
Happily innocence is as blind as love, and May 
Okeburne passed through the fire unscathed. 
Her health, too, somewhat shattered by the hot 
weather, and several bad bouts of fever, pre- 
vented her from going much into society, and 
she was only too pleased that her husband found 
some amusements. Poor child, she gave out 
innocently enough that she did not mind how 
much and how late he was at the Club playing 
billiards. But Simree laughed in its sleeve at 
her, for it was very little that the Club saw of 
him ; in fact, for “Club,” read Mrs. Dimple’s little 
rose-colored bungalow among the rhododen- 
drons. 

But Okeburne’s two months’ leave was nearly 
up, and he must return to his regiment. May 
was really unfit to face the hot weather again 
before the rains fell, and the doctor’s wife, good 
soul, proposed to keep her three, weeks longer 
with them. Okeburne agreed, in spite of May’s 
begging to be allowed to accompany him, and 
ere his leave expired took himself off on a ten 
days’ fishing expedition among the mountains. 


204 MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 

May, of course, was quite unfit for such roughing 
it. 

One evening she and the doctor’s wife came 
home from their airing carried aloft in their 
“dandies” along the Mall by the edge of the 
lake. It was crowded with people riding, walk- 
ing, and being carried, and the band was playing 
near the Assembly Rooms. 

“I haven’t seen Mrs. Dimple about lately,” 
remarked May’s companion. 

‘‘I hope she’s not ill; but you’re quite right, I 
haven’t seen her since Godfrey left.” And then 
she thought no more of the matter. 

Two days later the doctor’s wife proposed to 
make a little expedition out to a bungalow on a 
small lake some few miles off, and send lunch 
there. She fancied it would be a change and do 
the girl good, for May had faded so terribly, as 
fair, transparent women do in India. Only 
brunettes, like Mrs. Dimple, aided by art, man- 
age to defy the ravages of the climate. 

May’s bearers, with their light load, got ahead 
of the more portly Mrs. Smith and the others, 
and she found herself arrived first at a turn in 
the road whence she caught a lovely view of the 
lake embosomed in the hills, and the little bun- 
galow on a terrace above. Figures were moving 


MRS. DIMPLE'S VICTIM. 


205 


about — servants and ponies. Evidently someone 
was staying there. 

Presently the unseen watcher, halting on the 
mountain’s path, saw two people step from be- 
hind the “chick” which covers doors in India, 
and seat themselves on chairs in the veranda. 
In another instant she had recognized her hus- 
band and Mrs. Dimple. 

Mrs. Smith’s jampan bearers toiling up the hill 
were met by May in her jampan returning. 

“It’s so hot and open near the bungalow, I 
want to have lunch here under this tree, if you 
don’t mind, Mrs. Smith?” 

“Certainly, my dear. But how white you 
look! Here, quick, William, she’s going to faint 
— some brandy.” 

“It’s the heat, I think,” murmured poor May. 
And that one white lie was all that her agony 
ever wrung from her. 

Not quite all, though. For when unhealthy 
September came, and cholera swooped down on 
the goth’s station, it carried off May as its first 
victim. Mrs. Smith, bending over her at the 
very last, caught the words gasped by the blue 
lips : 

“Oh, if he had only cared for me a little, I 
shouldn’t have minded !” 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


She was my first love, Lizzie Baynes. 

I remember her in a short, white cotton frock 
at the tenants’ ball we gave down at Bannicombe 
every Christmas, a most fascinating little maiden. 
Blankshire, my elder brother (home, like me, 
from Eton, for the holidays), and young Terence, 
the village doctor’s son, had a great quarrel, 
almost amounting to a fight, over a dance with 
her. It was characteristic of Lizzie that she 
finally elected to dance with Blankshire, because 
he had a name all to himself, — meaning, of 
course, his title. 

As we grew older my passion waned, for we saw 
very little of each other, I never being down 
much in Wessex except for the shooting; and I 
rather fancy Lizzie disappeared to a boarding- 
school in a neighboring town. Then, one spring, 
going down from Oxford to bury myself at Ban- 
nicombe and read for my degree, I found her 

3Q6 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. ioj 

blossomed out into an exceedingly pretty, if 
somewhat vain and flighty, little siren. Her 
father, whose father before him had been land- 
steward at Bannicombe, was mighty proud of 
her. 

Sometimes on a wet afternoon, or in the even- 
ing when I was sick of “mugging” I would wan- 
der over to the farm and have a smoke and chat 
with old Baynes. Somehow, I generally found 
young Terence there, and was amused to notice 
the paroxysms of ill-concealed jealousy into 
which the little minx would throw the poor 
young fellow by flirting a bit with me. So I saw 
how the land lay there. 

A year later, running down to Bannicombe for 
a few days, while on a round of visits in that part 
of the world, the first person I met coming down 
the avenue as I drove up from the station was 
old Terence, the doctor. He had been up to the 
house to see a sick servant. He was in such a 
state of beaming delight that I could not help 
stopping to ask after Mrs. Terence and the tribe 
of boys. He then quite took my breath away 
by the announcement that Pat Terence, the 
eldest, and my former rival, had passed his exam- 
ination for the army, and had that week been 


2o8 LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK . 

gazetted to some line regiment. Of course 1 
congratulated the old man, marveling all the 
time over the folly of the Cardwell competitive 
system, which brought penniless lads like this 
into the service, and wondering how oh earth the 
uniform was to be paid for. 

The next time I saw Bannicombe was after 
eighteen months’ absence shooting big game 
with Blankshire in the Rockies. The little vil- 
lage wore quite a festive appearance as I drove 
up from the station, the bells ringing and all the 
women and children at the cottage doors gazing 
and talking; for, as I discovered, no less an event 
had just taken place than the fair Lizzie’s mar- 
riage to young Terence. 

“An officer in the army! To think of that, 
my lord,’’ quoth old Baynes to me with exulta- 
tion. “Not but what my girl’s pretty enough for 
a duke; that she is — begging your pardon, my 
lord.’’ 

Good old fellow ! She was the only lass 
among all the boys, and her parents and her 
brothers had worshiped her from her cradle. 

Three or four years later I was idling away a 
few weeks at Simla, on my return from shooting 
in Cashmere, and while it was yet too hot to go 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


209 


after the tigers in the Terai. The evening after 
my arrival I found myself at a ball at the Vice- 
roy’s, and in a crush at a doorway, face to face 
with Lizzie Terence. 

In spite of the elaborate ball dress, and the 
diamonds glittering round her snowy neck and 
shoulders, there was no mistaking the pleading 
violet eyes, the sweet childish face, which first 
turned deadly white, and then flushed crimson as 
she recognized me. 

“Lizzie,” I said, holding out a hand, “is this 
the way you treat old friends?” 

She stopped and looked at me with an implor- 
ing look. 

“O Lord Archie! one does not expect to meet 
old friends out here,” she faltered. 

“If we are going to dance this, we had better 
begin before the crush comes.” 

The speaker was Major the Honorable Percy 
Standish, the smartest and most aristocratic of 
all the Commander-in-Chiefs A. D. C.’s, black- 
browed and dissipated looking. 

All the years I had known Percy Standish 
about town, I had never liked him less. The 
familiar tone in which he spoke to Lizzie jarred 
upon me. They passed on, and someone be- 


210 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK . 


hind me congratulated me on being an old friend 
of the beauty. 

Remembering the imploring look of the violet 
eyes, I restrained a smile, and admitted to the 
honor of having known her as a girl, and know- 
ing her people down in Wessex, suppressing all 
details,, and marveling over the elasticity of 
Anglo-Indian society. 

“So she’s the beauty?’’ I asked. 

“Quite the prettiest woman this year in 
Simla,’’ rejoined my informant. “Bad style, you 
know, but very fetching. Standish discovered 
her when the Chief was inspecting her regiment, 
and got her up here. But he’s such a beastly 
selfish chap, won’t let anyone else have an inn- 
ings.” 

“The Viceroy himself was rather smitten,” 

remarked someone else ; but Lady (naming 

our hostess) put her foot down. She has so 
much to put up with, don’t you know ” 

And so on with notes and comments which 
won’t bear repeating, and which made me feel 
sick at heart, as I watched Lizzie and her dia- 
monds revolving with Standish. 

I went to call upon her in her pretty little 
chalet, nestling on the hillside among the rhodo- 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK \ 


211 


dendrons. Poor Terence, she informed me, was 
grilling away in the plains somewhere below, and 
could not get leave. I met her everywhere, at 
heavy official dinners, at Benmore subscription 
dances, state balls, picnics, out on the fir-clad 
heights of Mashobra, and at sky races down in 
the grassy valleys of Annandale ; at all the enter- 
tainments, in fact, which make up that mill-wheel 
round of dissipation called the Simla season. 
For once the doors of the Viceregal lodge are 
open to anyone, all the other doors in Simla fol- 
low suit, and Standish had compassed the first 
requisite for Lizzie — not that at any time it 
requires much management, for there is but one 
society in Simla, and that is elastic. 

In public Lizzie was always very gracious to 
me, throwing over in my favor many of the 
lesser stars among her admirers; but when we 
were alone together she was embarrassed, ill at 
ease, and carefully kept the conversation off 
home and home subjects. I know not whether 
she was afraid lest I should divulge her ante- 
cedents, or take her to task, with the license of 
an old friend, for her present behavior. On the 
score of the former she need have had no fear, 
but the latter I felt sorely tempted to do, and 


21 2 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


watched ‘anxiously for an opportunity, which she 
never gave me. 

A week or two slipped away. One evening, 
about midnight, I started to walk back from the 
club to my hotel. I had been playing whist 
there part of the time with Standish, who, how- 
ever, had complained of fever, and left early. It 
was a glorious Indian moonlight night ; the cool 
night breeze rustled in the deodars, and the sky 
was flooded with stars, while the nearly full 
moon cast inky shadows. It was all so lovely, 
I felt disinclined for bed, and lighting a cigar, 
strolled along the Mall under the rhododendrons. 
Suddenly, round an angle in the road, I saw 
before me a pony waiting at the foot of a zigzag 
path leading up the hillside, with a sleepy groom 
lying on the road beside him. In an instant I 
recognized the pony as one of Standish’s, the one 
with the two white stockings I had often seen 
him riding. I looked up, and saw Mrs. Terence’s 
house gleaming white among the trees. Before 
I had time for wonder, I heard a sound of voices, 
and a dark mass coming down the path instinct- 
ively made me slacken my pace. The dark mass 
evolved itself into a man and a woman. The 
former stirred up his groom with the butt end of 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 213 

his whip, mounted the pony, and cantered off, 
the latter remained standing bareheaded in the 
moonlight looking after him. 

Now was my opportunity. I quickened my 
pace, came up behind her, and laid my hand on 
her shoulder. 

“Lizzie, what does this mean? What would 
your father say?” I asked, as sternly as I knew 
how. 

She quailed and shrank before me, and looked 
around as if she would have fled. Then sud- 
denly she burst into tears. 

“You won’t tell father, will you?” she sobbed. 
“It would kill him! I know I’m very wicked; 
but I must have excitement, and parties, and 
frocks, and Percy is very fond of me, and he’s a 
lord’s son, you know.” 

I hesitated for a moment what to do. Her 
tears unmanned me. I had never seen her 
cry. 

“Lizzie,” I said at last, “let me save you from 
yourself. Let me send you home to your father. 
I will pay your passage.” 

“Oh, no, Lord Archie,” she cried, with a shiver. 
“Not home — I could not bear it. Bannicombe 
is so dull — no dances, no men. No, anything 


5*4 LIZZIE : A SHIP WkECK. 

but home.” And she escaped from me, and fled 
up the hill. 

The following afternoon, at the Senior Mem- 
ber of Council’s weekly garden party, I overheard 
a scrap of conversation between Mrs. Commis- 
sioner Crabtree and Mrs. General Backbite. 

“There can be no doubt about it, I should say. 
We saw his pony waiting below the house a few 
nights ago as we were going to the Smiths’ 
dance, and it was still there when we returned. 
Looks bad.” 

I turned and saw Mrs. Backbite wearing as vin- 
dictive an expression as ever I saw on mortal 
woman’s face, and recollecting something I heard 
about her having great hopes last year of catch- 
ing Standish for her daughter, I trembled for 
Lizzie. 

That very evening I got a telegram saying my 
shooting party in the Terai was awaiting me, and 
had to rush off early the following morning with- 
out time to say good-by to Lizzie. On emerging 
from the jungles some weeks later, and returning 
to civilization and posts, I found my Simla let- 
ters full of a terrible denouement. 

A garbled story of an anonymous letter send- 
ing an infuriated husband rushing up from the 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


2I 5 


plains, to find a white-stockinged pony waiting 
on the terrace by night; a locked door broken 
open ; a fight between two angry men, and a 
wretched little wife turned neck and crop out of 
doors — all this came down piecemeal from my 
various correspondents, and made my heart 
bleed. 

Before I left India the case came into court, 
and I read in the papers that Standish had been 
mulcted in a heavy sum (I suppose his relations 
helped him out, for I knew he had not got it), 
and only by bolting home without leave, and 
jeopardizing his commission, escaped the two 
years' incarceration which the Indian law inflicts 
on similar offenders. 

Of what had become of the erring Lizzie, not 
one syllable reached me. As a change from the 
ordinary mail route, I embarked for home in a 
vessel belonging to one of those foreign lines 
which coast up Italy. After the first few days 
when people on board had got over their seasick- 
ness and began to talk, I found much speculation 
rife as to a mysterious and lovely being who 
occupied a reserved cabin, whence she never 
emerged, and who had all her meals brought in 
to her, though she was not ill. I paid but little. 


2l6 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK . 


attention to the gossip, knowing how people 
make mountains out of molehills on board ship, 
for lack of anything better to talk about. 

One night, however, when we were not far off 
Aden, finding my cabin unbearably hot, I came 
up again to sleep on deck about an hour after 
turning in. Emerging on the deck at the top of 
the companion, I found myself face to face with 
a figure wrapped in a shawl, pacing the deck like 
a caged tigress. There was no mistaking her, 
though she was w.orn and haggard, and her eyes 
shone like burning coals. 

“Lizzie !” I exclaimed. 

She gave a cry, and turned from me; but I 
held her fast. 

“Leave me,” she cried. “How can you speak 
to me? I saw you come on board, and I have 
been trying to avoid you.” 

“Why should you avoid me, Lizzie?” I asked 
soothingly. “Come and sit down and talk to 
me. I am an old friend.” 

“Friend!” she repeated, with a harsh little 
laugh. “I haven’t a friend in the whole world. 
Everyone shuns me: no one speaks to me. All 
because I’ve been found out. You can do what 
you like if only you’re not found out. Percy’s 
left me, raving at me because he’s lost his ap~ 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


217 


pointment. They’ve taken my boy away from 
me; and you don’t suppose Pat will take me 
back, do you ?” she added bitterly, with an hys- 
terical little laugh. 

I tried to calm her, to induce her to go down 
below to bed, but in vain. Then, noticing she 
was shivering in her thin white gown, I offered to 
go and fetch her a warm rug. She looked up at 
me with something of the old pathetic look in 
her lovely eyes. 

“You were always good to me! I wish I had 
gone home when you told me to.” 

It was quite a calm night, the tropical sea like 
glass; yet, just as I dived down the companion, 
I distinctly heard, though I hardly noticed it at 
the time, a splash of water, as if a wave had 
dashed against the side of the ship. Down 
below lights were out, and it was only after some 
delay I could find my rug in the dark. When I 
returned on deck, I was glad to find Lizzie had 
taken my advice, and gone, as the watch ex- 
plained to me in his Italian patois. So I turned 
In too. 

But with the next morning came a terrible 
hue and cry. The mysterious lady had disap- 
peared. Her cabin was empty; her berth un- 
.slept in. There was but one solution of her dis- 


2 1 8 


LIZZIE: A SHIPWRECK. 


appearance, namely, the splash I had heard in the 
midnight Indian Ocean. I kept my own coun- 
sel, but it was perhaps with the feeling it was 
best that I had thus seen the last of the erring, 
lovely Lizzie, and that the waters had closed 
over her unhappy career. 

Mad from life’s history, 

Glad to death’s mystery 
Swift to be hurl’d. 

Anywhere, anywhere, 

Out of the world. 

In she plunged boldly. 

A few days after I reached England the Turk- 
estan war broke out, and among the list of 
killed in the first engagement I read the name of 
Pat Terence. The same paper contained the 
announcement that that gallant and distin- 
guished officer, lately on the staff of H. E. the 
Commander-in-Chief in India, Major the Honor- 
able Percy Standish, had been appointed military 
secretary to his cousin, Sir Benjamin Blazer, the 
new governor of Victoria. 

I must leave off now, for Lizzie’s boy, whom I 
have sent to school, and who always spends part 
of his holidays with me, is clamoring for me to 
go out and bowl for him. 


✓ 


HOW THE CONVALESCENT 
DETACHMENT KILLED 
A TIGER. 


The noble army of convalescents was en route 
for the hills. It is a thing of the past, now, that 
annual march of the blind, the halt, and the lame 
fleeing from the already furnace-like plains sta- 
tions, for the railway now jogs along to the very 
foot of the Himalayas. 

We were a motley crew. There were once gay 
Lancers dejectedly trudging along on foot; gun- 
ners of every species; infantry of every colored 
facing, including trewed Highlanders and Rifle 
Brigade, rusty with the dust. Day after day the 
weary little band trudged along the straight, 
dusty, seemingly never-ending road, toward the 
cool paradise whose faint blue outline fringed the 
long level horizon. 

Bullock carts were goaded along laden with 
women and children, perched on the top of all 


219 


2 20 the detachment kills a tiger. 

their household goods, and covered over with a 
straw awning, leading a veritable gypsy caravan 
life. A long drawn-out line of doolies — those 
ferocious doolies of which Punch heard in the 
Afghan war as carrying off the wounded — each 
with its sick occupant tossing under its coffin-like 
roof, jolted along in the dust to the never-ceasing 
grunt of the bearers. 

Foremost in the van rode the gallant major in 
command of the heterogeneous multitude in full 
glory of charger and trappings. About and be- 
hind him came the married captains and junior 
subalterns of all sorts who had either volun- 
teered or been ordered to duty at the Convales- 
cent Hill Depot for the next six months, and to 
whom had been granted dispensations to ride on 
ponies, and who were clad in such variety of un- 
dress uniform as seemed good to every man in 
his own eyes. Mention must be made, too, of 
our “pill” and his apothecaries, whose time hardly 
hung heavy on their hands. 

Trailing in front and behind the corps for miles 
along the dusty road came little groups of bag- 
gage animals. There were strings of camels tied 
to each others’ tails, the foremost led by a native 
driver, a “drabby,” with their vicious looking 


THE DETACHMENT KILLS A TIGER. 


221 


heads and legs swinging about in all directions, 
and with rolls of tents balancing on each of their 
horny sides. Then came elephants with more 
tents, stalking along in an independent, business- 
like manner. Further on a string of mules, on 
their pack saddles the men’s kits in neat bundles, 
all ambling along on the look out for mischief, 
for mules always seem possessed. Next came 
more bullock carts with officers’ baggage — the 
wheels creaking, the drivers shouting, and whack- 
ing. Thus we moved along. 

Already two nights had we encamped under 
the rows of mango trees which mark the govern- 
ment camping grounds every ten miles or so, and 
had brought money and wild excitement into the 
cluster of mud huts yclept a village across the 
road. Two mornings had we been passed from 
time to time by the galloping “dak gharry,” a 
bathing-machine-like vehicle harnessed with two 
small ponies, and whose sleepy occupants, on 
their way # to the hills, peered out at us. Who 
knows, perhaps one such conveyance contained 
the she who was to be the joy of our souls at 
ball, picnic, and ride for the next few months by 
the lake up above ! 

Before midday we are again settled in our can- 


2 2 2 THE DE TA CHMEN T KILLS A TIGER. 

vas village as comfortably as if we had been there 
for a week. This camp was bounded on one side 
by a luxuriant thicket of bamboos. In a rude 
hut therein resided a filthy fakir — i. e., religious 
person — whose earthly mission seemed to consist 
in daily feeding at sundown troops of jackals 
who assembled at his sounding on the cow-horn. 
This spectacle proved a mild excitement for the 
men, who turn out to witness it from the ever- 
lasting lotto game, or “house,” the cries of which, 
“one, three, eight, fourteen, house,” etc., had 
rung out unceasingly all the hot hours. 

But in the major’s tent — where at noon he had 
dispensed justice on a mule driver who had given 
one of his beasts a sore back with bad loading, 
and on a Tommy Atkins caught thrashing a vil- 
lager who had dared to demand payment for 
some liquor — in the major’s tent a solemn con- 
clave was held. He was a real Highlander and 
had sporting instincts, but he was nothing to 
Jones of the 114th, who was young and blood- 
thirsty, and yearned to slay beasts not a whit 
less than Smith, a veritable old “shikarry,” who 
looked upon soldiering in India as one long 
shooting expedition, only that sometimes men 


THE DETACHMENT KILLS A TIGER. 22% 

were to be stalked and not tigers. These two 
urged on the major with the following results: 

In the Decalogue of the British army in India 
it is written that “on the seventh day thou shalt 
not march, but shalt halt, polish up thy kit, and 
do a bit of shut-eye.” The major being very 
new to his responsible position, and somewhat of 
a Presbyterian, was inclined to a minute observ- 
ance of anise and cummin. It took a little per- 
suasion to get him to decree that halt we should, 
but that the Sabbath should fall on that day 
when we should be encamped at Sahari two 
marches off, in the heart of the Terai, a strip of 
marshy forest stretching at the foot of the hills 
and the sportsman's paradise. 

A further result of the conclave was the dis- 
patching of a native trooper, the major’s orderly, 
with a polite request to the neighboring Rajah of 
Panpore to have some elephants waiting for us at 
Sahari. We didn’t know much about the Rajah 
except that he had elephants, and had lent them 
before, and that he resided in a metropolis some 
forty miles off surrounded with a cactus hedge, 
and where they made blue pottery. Civilians 
might have other views, but to the average mili- 
tary mind it is what Rajahs exist for. The con- 


224 THE DETACHMENT KILLS A TIGER. 

clave then dispersed, and there was a general 
tendency to look up rifles and cartridges. 
Young Robinson, just from home, sallied out 
secretly to try his brand-new rifle, at the immi- 
nent risk of the villager’s cattle. 

Sahari was a camp of evil odor. Its very ap- 
pearance was malarious, and the sight of the for- 
est officer’s bungalow, perched up on stilts, as it 
were, to be ®ut of the way of the miasma, was 
enough in itself to make one feel feverish. How- 
ever, we all promised ourselves a dose of quinine 
at bedtime, and then the sight of the Rajah’s 
elephants tied up in line dispelled every idea but 
that of sport. Presently we found we were in 
luck’s way. There was a civil engineer in camp 
hard by, building a bridge over a refractory river. 
He was a devoted “shikarry,” and allowed two 
elephants, which were used quite as much for 
sport as for their legitimate work. Then the for- 
est officer himself was roosting for a day or two 
in his bungalow perch, and he was supposed, as a 
matter of course, to know the whereabouts of 
every tiger and herd of deer in his district, which 
was about the size of an English county. That 
is rather the raison d'etre of forest officers ; they 
are, as it were, gamekeepers on a large scale. To 


THE DETACHMENT KILLS A TIGER. 225 

crown all, “khabar,” that is to say news, of a 
tiger itself floated mysteriously through the 
camp. Some cow or other had fallen a victim 
only a night or two before, within a mile of the 
camp. Was ever such luck as ours? Everyone 
was on the tiptoe of excitement, and young Rob- 
inson had fearful nightmares of hand-to-hand com- 
bats with the lord of the forest. 

It was cold, and raw, and misty, and barely 
light, when our bearer insisted on awaking us 
next morning; but as soon as we had collected 
our ideas sufficiently to remember the import- 
ance of the occasion, we turned out to a man. 
Outside the tents the huge beasts were drawn up 
in battle array, a patient mahout seated behind 
the ears of each. The private elephants carried 
neat, if narrow, howdahs, wherein two men, not 
over-burdened with long legs, might sit with diffi- 
culty as in a narrow pew in church. But some 
of the Rajah’s elephants had only a pad or mat- 
tress, whereon some of the youngsters were 
forced to maintain a precarious existence. Next 
came the mounting. It was all very well for the 
elephant to lie down, but that hardly seemed to 
make any appreciable difference in its height. 
Still the howdah towered above us, and ladders 


226 THE detachment kills a tiger. 

there were none. However, the animal . was 
good enough to make a curl in his tail, using 
which as a footrest we were able to haul ourselves 
up it on to his back. 

Then the procession started. Fifteen ele- 
phants solemnly stalked through the brushwood, 
and through the jungle beyond the camp; crash- 
ing under boughs which almost swept one off the 
howdah, fording marshy streams, up the muddy 
fern-clothed banks of which the wary beasts 
would not venture till they had sounded them 
with their trunks and feet. After about a mile 
of this we emerged on a clearing in the forest, a 
patch of tall elephant grass some half mile 
square. Two “stops’’ were sent round, one to 
each corner of the far end of the grass, and the 
rest of the elephants formed line to beat down 
the jungle. The two stops carried the major 
with the engineer, and the forest officer with 
Jones. We smaller fry mounted on the line ele- 
phants dived silently into the grass and the beat 
began. 

All that we could see around were the other 
elephants’ ears and their riders’ sun helmets wav- 
ing above the sea of grass. Screaming pea-fowl, 
whirring black partridge, quail, hog, and spotted 
deer fled startled from the covert under our very 


THE DETACHMENT KILLS A TIGER. 227 

noses, and were allowed to escape. Suddenly, to 
the motionless watchers at the other end of the 
jungle, the grass appeared to wave as if from a 
mass creeping below it. A few minutes later 
and a patch of color flashed on the outskirts of 
the jungle. The next moment the tiger himself 
cautiously sneaked into the open. Then we in 
the rear heard the sharp reports of two shots. 
When we gained the open we found the trium- 
phant major afoot measuring his kill ; and as we 
crowded round him, we of his detachment felt a 
measure of his glory fall upon us. The tiger was 
laid across a pad elephant, and carried off into 
camp. 

But the morning was still young, so short and 
sweet had the performance been ; so we re- 
mounted and beat again — for deer, this time. 
The jungle seemed alive. They bounded out on 
each side as we crashed along, and every minute 
the forest re-echoed with a shot. In fact, young 
Robinson on the front of veteran Brown's how- 
dah declared himself deafened for life by the 
constant discharge of the latter’s rifle in his very 
ear. Thus the morning wore away, till the sun 
striking almost vertically down through the 
branches — some of which, after the foolish habit 
of some Indian trees, are shedding their leaves in 


228 the detachment kills a tiger. 

the spring — warned us to return to camp to tub 
and breakfast. We repeated the performance, 
minus the tiger episode, in the cool of the even- 
ing and there was much feasting off venison in 
the men’s tents for some days to come. 

At dinner we made merry with the forest offi- 
cer and the engineer, who lead such solitary lives, 
poor fellows, that they were quite uproarious. 
But we must turn in early, for rtveiltt will sound 
to-morrow with the first streak of dawn, and 
three-quarters of an hour later the bugle-call to 
strike tents. Nevertheless we pass out into the 
moonlight to gaze once more on the tawny skin 
of our prize, stretched taut on the ground pre- 
viously to being rubbed with wood ashes to pre- 
serve it. The major has carefully removed the 
claws and whiskers, or the natives, who regard 
them as charms, would make away with them. 
One more loving measurement — for is he not our 
depot tiger, the legend of whose demise will lin- 
ger around the Convalescent Depot for years to 
come? — and we turn in to a well-earned repose, 
lulled to rest by the bubbling of the camels 
seated in circles close by ready for the dawn, or 
the far-off bay of a pariah and howl of a jackal, 
or a difference of opinion between two mules. 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


There was a dead silence in the room, broken 
only by the ticking of the clock. The master 
of the house — the Rev. Theophilus Carr — stood 
with his back to the fireplace, his hands thrust 
into his trousers pockets, and his eyes bent on 
the ground with a stern-set look on his face. 
Mrs. Carr, a pale, frightened little woman, sat at 
a small table, nervously trying to do some fancy- 
work which trembled in her hands, and ever and 
anon stealing furtive glances at the others. 

The central figure of the group was a good- 
looking young man, smart and well dressed in an 
irreproachable country costume of shooting coat 
and knickerbockers. He had a thin face, per- 
haps rather worn for his years, a slight dark 
mustache, fine eyes, and dark hair already prema- 
turely thin on the top. He sat nervously draw- 
ing diagrams on the carpet with his walking- 
stick, and his face wore a worried, harassed look. 


230 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 

Looking out of the window stood Mabel Carr, 
who looked the image of her father. She was a 
tall, slight girl, with her hands tightly clasped 
behind her back, and a hard-set look on her face 
just like his, only that her lips quivered now and 
then. 

At last Mr. Carr broke silence. 

“No, Godfrey, much as I like you personally 
as an acquaintance, I can only repeat what I told 
you when you called a week ago. I should not 
feel justified either as a clergyman or a parent in 
giving my Mabel to a young man of your ante- 
cedents. No, don’t interrupt me. I dare -say 
you are no worse than many, but I look for 
someone better than most for her." And here a 
softer look came over his face as he glanced at 
his daughter. “I must beg, therefore, that you 
consider all over between you, and that, for the 
present at least, all acquaintance between us 
cease.” 

Godfrey Allen barely heard him out. He 
sprang to his feet, and seized his hat. 

“Well, then, Mr. Carr,” he cried bitterly, “re- 
member she would have saved me — me, the son 
of your oldest friend ; but now I tell you I shall 
just go straight to the devil!” 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 231 

And with one look of unutterable longing at 
Mabel he strode to the door and left the room. 

Mrs. Carr gave a little shocked cry at his last 
words, and a nervous look at her husband. 

Mabel didn’t move till she heard the hall door 
slam ; then she, too, turned and left the room 
without a word or a look. Her father’s eyes fol- 
lowed her sadly to the door; then he flung him- 
self down into a chair and took refuge in a news- 
paper, while Mrs. Carr began to cry quietly. 

As Mabel closed the drawing-room door be- 
hind her, a slip of a schoolgirl sister, who had 
been waiting in the hall, ran up to her, and threw 
her arms round her neck. 

“Dear Mabel, is it all over? Is he gone away 
for good? Oh, I know he has!” 

Mabel put her gently aside, and, fleeing up- 
stairs to her room, locked the door behind her. 

All the long golden summer afternoon the sun- 
light flickered in and out through the casement, 
and the bees hummed in the jasmine creepers. 
She could hear the mowing machine at work on 
the lawn, and then the hammering in of the ten- 
nis pegs. Anon'came the shouts of her father 
and sister over their game. Her mother knocked 
hesitatingly at her door, but she gave no answer. 


232 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 

The eVening shadows lengthened, the cattle 
lowed in the meadows, the rooks came cawing 
home to the tall trees about the hall. Still 
Mabel lay on her bed, her wet face buried in the 
pillows, fighting out her first hopeless battle with 
cruel fate. At eighteen her life seemed dark- 
ened forever. 

Presently came Mary, the housemaid (who also 
had a young man, and was very sympathetic), 
with a cup of tea, which was declined. But she 
added in a hoarse whisper through the keyhole : 

“A note from the ’all, miss, please.” 

Even without the bright half-sovereign Mary 
had just then in her pocket, she, or any of the 
servants at the Hall or the Parsonage, would 
have done anything to help Godfrey and Mabel. 

“Put it under the door,” was the reply; and 
when her footsteps had died away down the pas- 
sage, Mabel rose and picked up the note. 

“I must see you to say good-by to you. Meet 
me at seven o’clock at the boat house. 

“Yours, faithful to death, 

“G. A.” 


The bitterness and anger faded out of Mabel’s 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 233 

face as she read these words, and were replaced 
by a sad, heart-stricken look that was pitiable to 
see. She bathed her eyes and smoothed her hair 
and went down to the study. Her father was 
looking out the hymns for next Sunday. It was 
choir practice night, and upstairs her mother and 
Nell were putting on their things to go to it. 

“Father,” she said, holding out the letter, 
“Godfrey wants to say good-by. He won’t come 
here ; may I go down and meet him at the boat 
house? I will come on to practice after.” 

He looked up at her face, so sad, so worn 
with the struggle, and, noticing the beaten look 
on it, with all the magnanimity of a conqueror he 
said : 

“Yes, child, you may go, but don’t be late for 
practice.” 

Down by the river the shadows were growing 
dusk under the trees. The frogs croaked among 
the banks, and bats flew about. The skiff lay 
idle on the water, which was ruffled by the even- 
ing breeze. Over the meadows the mists were 
rising, and among the light bank of clouds to the 
east a pale light showed where the moon soon 
would rise. 

Godfrey was pacing restlessly up and down the 


234 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 

bank. When Mabel’s white dress loomed under 
the trees, he went up to her and would have 
caught her in his arms. But she drew back, and 
putting both hands in his looked up in his face. 

“Godfrey, I’ve come as you asked me — to say 
good-by; don’t make it too hard for me, I can’t 
bear it.” 

“ My darling ! ” he murmured. His voice 
shook, and he covered her hand with kisses. 
Then abruptly he put her away from him, and 
began walking up and down as restlessly as 
before. 

“Good God!” he exclaimed, “it is hard that 
some people should have all they want and oth- 
ers nothing. Up there,” and he pointed to the 
big house among the trees, “my brother has 
everything he can possibly desire ; I am of the 
same stock, with the same bringing up and edu- 
cation. Why should he be rich and I a pauper? 
And why, just because I am a pauper, should I 
not be allowed to have the only thing I want, 
which would make up for everything else — you? 
And they talk of the justice of Heaven!” he 
added bitterly. 

“Oh, hush!” said Mabel. “Perhaps it is best 
for you ; who knows? Poor as I am too, I should 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 235 

only be a burden to you, and you’ll perhaps get 
on better without me.” 

“Mabel,” he said earnestly, stopping straight 
in front of her, his hands thrust doggedly into 
his pockets ; “you don’t know what my life has 
been when you talk like that. It was not all my 
own fault ; things have gone against me. But 
with you to live for, you to work for, I would and 
could have kept steady and straight ! And you 
know it!” And his face lit up with a loving 
smile, and he drew her to him and printed one 
long kiss on her brow. 

She drew herself away, but held his hand. 
Looking up into his face, she said quietly and 
solemnly : 

“Yes, Godfrey, I shall always remember how 
you loved me ; and I shall never love anybody 
again as I love you. God bless you and keep 
you !” And she tore herself away and was soon 
lost to sight under the dark trees. 

Godfrey stood where she had left him, watch- 
ing her as long as he could see her, while a chill 
evening breeze stole down the river and rustled 
the branches. 

Mabel walked swiftly over the park. The sun 
had set, the twilight lay brooding over the land. 


236 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 

Nature seemed in harmony with her sorrow. 
Hurrying over the dewy grass, she startled the 
deer under the trees and the owls in the 
branches, and entered the churchyard. 

There were lights in the chancel already, 
though it was still summer twilight out of doors. 
A sound of an harmonium and voices singing 
came over to her. She entered the church 
quietly by the northern porch. The nave was 
almost dark ; no one noticed her. Echoing 
through the empty building came the voices of 
the choir: 

The night is dark, and I am far from home, 

Lead Thou me on. 

She knelt down in a seat, and, laying her head 
on the bookrest, sobbed aloud. Her life seemed 
darkened forever. Yet she felt so young, and 
such a long, dreary journey seemed to stretch out 
before her, a journey to l^e trodden without him — 

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent ; till 
The night is gone. 

And with the dawn those angel faces smile 

That I have loved long since and lost awhile. 

But he seemed lost forever. Never again 
would he smile on her. It was all over, this 
dream of theirs. No dawn would brighten for 
her, Never again was she to hear his voice and 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 237 

see his eyes fixed lovingly upon her. Fate had 
come between them. This hard, prosaic, worldly 
nineteenth-century fate, which overlooked their 
wild, young love, and only thought of £ s. d., 
and asked : “What ye shall eat, and what ye 
shall drink, and wherewithal shall ye be clothed.” 

The music ceased, the children clattered out of 
the chancel, glad to be released. The old sexton 
began putting out the lights. Then steps came 
down the nave toward her. Mabel looked up. 

It was Christopher Trent, the curate. He 
stopped in surprise. 

“You here, Miss Mabel? I thought you were 
not coming to-night.” 

Mabel rose and moved toward the door. She 
couldn’t speak, and was glad it was too dark for 
him to see her face. But in the porch he seemed 
to notice something in her manner. 

“The others are gone,” he said ; “let me see 
you home. You seem quite cold and tired.” 
For she shivered in the evening air. “You won’t 
mind my coming with you?” he added, with 
such pleading in his look and voice that she 
must have noticed it, had she not been too en- 
grossed with herself ; for the honest fellow suf- 
fered in seeing her suffer* 


238 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

It was nearly a month after this that Mabel 
summoned up her courage and took the path to 
the boathouse again. She had settled down 
into the everyday routine of life. But there 
were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheek 
was pale, and she was listless and aimless. 
Sweet, gentle, and obedient she had always been 
at home, but her spirits were gone. Her parents 
marked all this, and said to each other: “She is 
young; let her alone. Time will heal all/' 

But her mother shed quiet tears over her some- 
times. Nell never teased her now, and was more 
than usually devoted. 

To-day, how r ever, Mabel thought herself strong 
enough to allow herself the 

Pain that is almost a pleasure, 

And the pleasure that’s almost a pain, 

of revisiting the spot where she had said good- 
by to Godfrey. But she chose the middle of the 
day. 

Adams, the head gardener at the Hall, who 
had known her since she was a baby, was prun- 
ing some creepers about the boathouse. She 
stopped to wish him good-morning, though in- 
wardly vexed not to have the place to herself. 

“Weel, Miss Mabel,” began the old Scotch- 


FAITHFUL UNTO DFATH. 


2 39 

man, “and begging your pardon, there are sair 
news fra Lunnon.” 

‘‘What do you mean, Adams?” she asked 
quickly, for she guessed he meant news from 
some of the Hall people now in town. 

“It’s that sorra I am, Miss Mabel, as I dinna 
ken how for to tell ye. Maister Godfrey indeed ! 
— him as I mind when he was so high ” 

“Master Godfrey; well, what of him?*’ and 
Mabel turned sharply; and fixed her eyes on the 
old man. 

“Yes, Miss Mabel, Maister Godfrey. Why, ye 
must ha’ heard sooner or later, tho’ I grieve to 
tell ye. He’s gone and ’listed for a soldier, the 
bonnie lad !” 

The color left Mabel’s lips. 

“Tell me quick, Adams, how did you hear this? 
It can’t be true !” 

“Ah! and I’d gie a guid deal if it weren’t. 
But it come straight fra’ Lunnon, fra’ my grand- 
daughter Jessie, the lassie as is one of the house- 
maids at squire’s, ye ken, miss, and it’s ower true, 
it’s ower true !” And the old man shook his 
head mournfully. “Ye see, miss; when Maister 
Godfrey went away from here so sudden like, a 
month back (and right sorra we were for the 


246 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

cause as made him gang awa’, begging yer par- 
don, Miss Mabel), he went up to squire in town. 
And Jessie do say as squire took on finely, and 
that they had words all along o’ debts or money 
or summut o’ the sort, and Maister Godfrey he 
left the house in a rage, and then next day he 
coom and tell the squire as how he’d gone and 
’listed for a soldier, and squire swore he’d never 
spake to him again, and turned him out of the 
house. Ah ! they twa lads, as I mind them, how 
they picked my flowers and stole my peaches. 
That they should ha’ come to this!” 

But Mabel had turned away, her hand clasped 
to her side, as if her heart would break. 

Some weeks later, one gray morning in early 
autumn, with a tinge of winter rawness already 
in the air, Mabel and her sister were taking their 
daily constitutional along the dreary, uninterest- 
ing turnpike road which ran between the fields 
and hedgerows of a flat agricultural landscape. 

At the same time, in a busy southern seaport, 
a large white Indian troopship was getting up 
steam to leave the dockyard. The Blue Peter 
flew at her masthead, and the broad gangway 
which connected her second deck with the jetty 
had already been withdrawn and replaced by a 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 241 

narrow plank. The poop was covered with 
officers in uniform, and a sprinkling of ladies 
and naval officers. The other parts of the ship 
swarmed with troops already, mostly in their 
rough, sea-going sailor-like kit. 

They crowded the ropes, the deckhouses, and 
looked out of the portholes. 

Below on the jetty were groups of spectators 
and officials. The order had already been given 
for all for shore to leave the ship, and one after 
another tearful little parties had reluctantly come 
down the plank, and placed themselves on some 
point of vantage on the jetty, where they were 
still within shouting, or at all events within dis- 
tinguishing, distance of their friends on board. 

At last, however, even the small plank was 
removed, the great hawsers which tied the ship to 
her moorings loosened, the last sailor jumped on 
board, and with a convulsive jerk of her screw 
the huge vessel began to move. 

Then from all the hundred throats on board, 
first low and husky, and then swelling all over 
the vast dockyard, even to the town beyond, rose 
a true British cheer, which dimmed many men’s 
eyes and made the women cry. 

But Godfrey Allen, hardly recognizable in the 


242 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

rough blue serge suit and stocking-cap of a pri- 
vate soldier, neither waved adieu to friends 
ashore nor joined in the cheer. There were 
doubtless many men on board who were leaving 
their mother country under various circumstances 
of trouble, disappointment, and even crime, but 
none with half the bitterness that rankled in his 
heart. 

A year passed, and brought about great 
changes at Beeston Rectory. Mabel was leaving 
forever. The stern, proud father had been sud- 
denly struck down in a fit, and the crushed 
widow and her daughters had, after the sad lot of 
clergy-folk, to seek another house. It was now 
their last evening at the old Rectory. 

Mabel, quiet and self-contained, but having 
within her an aching heart, had been her last 
round in the village. She had bidden good-by 
to the poor people who had known her all her 
life, and among whom her father had toiled for 
so many years. She had knelt for the last time 
in the old church where she had been baptized, 
confirmed, and where she had once dreamt of 
being married. Then she had stood awhile at 
her father’s grave, sad but quiet, with no other 


faithful uhto dea th. 


243 

feeling than that of affection to the parent who 
lay there. Doubtless he had been hard and 
stern to her, but in many ways she was like him, 
and he had through it all been very fond and 
proud of his handsome daughter, and now all 
misunderstandings and hard thoughts were ut- 
terly forgotten. 

Then came her last pilgrimage to the boat 
house. It was getting dark, as it had been on that 
never-to-be-forgotten night — one little year ago. 

The Hall was shut up again ; the great rows of 
windows, with the white blinds drawn down, 
seemed to stare coldly at her as she passed. She 
sat down on a rustic seat. The river flowed on 
sluggishly, just as it had done that night, and 
the breeze came up chill across the meadows. 
But Godfrey ? Where was he ? All these 
months, no news, no sign, no word of him. And 
so it was to be always, all through life! Her life 
was quiet and uneventful, and he had filled it up. 
She had not yet learned to live without him. 

She was not long alone. A figure in a wide- 
awake and a long coat came to her over the 
grass. It was Christopher Trent, the curate, 
come to feel his way, with the lovelight that she 
would not notice shining in his eyes. 


244 


FAITHFUL UNTO UFA TH. 


“Miss Mabel,” he began humbly, “I followed 
you here to get a quiet word with you, which I 
couldn’t do in the house. You don’t mind, I 
hope?” 

She gave no answer. She would not help him. 
Perhaps she hardly even heard what he said ; her 
thoughts were so far away. 

“What I wanted to say,” he went on, “is only 
this: I want to ask you to be kind enough to 
look upon me as a friend.” 

“Mr. Trent,” she said, “you’ve been that to 
us more than ever during the last few weeks. I 
don’t know what we should have done without 
you,” she added wearily. 

“Oh! but,” he pleaded, ^T want to be a friend 
to you specially. You are left quite alone in the 
world ; you have a great charge in your mother 
and sister, and you have a great deal to bear. I 
ask nothing more than for you to look to me for 
any help I can give you — to treat me really as a 
friend.” 

A light seemed to dawn upon her. She 
looked at him sweetly, and pressed his hand. 

“I will, indeed,” she said frankly. “I never 
had a brother, but you shall be to me as a 
brother would have been.” 


faithful unto dea th. 245 

Christopher sighed. 

They walked home together silently. At the 
garden gate Nell met them. 

“0 Mab, I’m so glad you’ve come in! I 
can do nothing with mother. She won’t touch 
her tea, and you know she’s hardly eaten any- 
thing to-day, and she’ll be ill if she goes on like 
this.” 

The Carrs settled themselves at a northern 
watering-place, with rows of terraces and cres- 
cents, an esplanade, a pier, plenty of bathing- 
machines, and a regiment quartered up at the 
fort. Starcombe considered itself quite a first- 
class place. The Carrs were not poor, but not 
very well off. There was no necessity for the 
girls to do anything but amuse themselves, 
unless they liked, and Nell, who was growing up 
a very pretty girl, asked for nothing better. The 
girls in Starcombe divided their attentions be- 
tween the curates at the ultra-high church down 
in the town and the officers up at the fort, and 
had rather a good time of it. But Mabel missed 
her quiet village life, and her father, and Christo- 
pher Trent, and the poor, and the many inter- 
ests in life she had at Beeston, and could not live 


24 6 FAITHFUL UNTO UFA TH. 

only for flirting and dressing. Also, in a corner 
of her heart, she nursed Godfrey Allen still. 
Life seemed gray and dim, and she felt old and 
sad and dull beyond her years. 

Yet another twelvemonth passed, and Nell 
married a nice young fellow in the regiment at 
the fort. Christopher Trent married them. He 
ever hovered about the Carr family. Then Nell 
and her husband sailed away to India, and for a 
long six months of a dull, dreary winter Mabel 
was the companion of her invalid mother, who 
was fast fading away — weakly and vaguely, as she 
had done everything else through life. 

Christopher Trent was a true friend at this 
time. His little visits formed the only cheerful 
break in Mabel’s monotonous existence, and the 
sick woman delighted in him. 

At last one morning, when she had sent Mabel 
out for a walk, Mrs. Carr spoke to him and drew 
from him the secret he thought he kept so well 
hidden. 

“I can’t last much longer,” she said, “and I 
shall die happy if I can leave Mabel with you. 
She has been a good daughter to me, and you 
deserve that she should be as good a wife to you. 
There was that nonsense about young Allen a 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 247 

long time ago, but her father was very firm and 
wise, and she has forgotten all about him now. 
There has never been anyone else ; she is not so 
attractive as Nell was.” 

“It has been the one wish of my life,” sighed 
Christopher; “but it must rest entirely with her.” 

Presently Mabel came in, with a bright color 
from her walk on the cliff in the east wind. Her 
mother took her hand, and drew her down beside 
her sofa. 

“Mabel,” she said, “here's Christopher Trent, 
weary with waiting, like Jacob. Won’t you say 
yes to him and let me die in peace?” 

Mabel raised her eyes — those deep true eyes 
which always spoke her thoughts. 

“Christopher, I must have a few words alone 
with you first.” 

They went out again into the esplanade. Peo- 
ple had mostly gone in to lunch ; there was no 
one about but the boatmen and the flymen and 
the goat-chaise boys, and the goats and the fly- 
horses were eating their lunch too. 

Christopher began: “I won’t say much, Ma- 
bel; you know all I could say; I feel you do. 
But I’ve the offer of a living down in the East 
End, a bad part of the town, with plenty of 


248 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 

work, needing brave hearts and busy hands. 
Will you come and help me? I know it is what 
you would like. It is a noble sphere open for 
your energies, and, as for me, there is no other 
helpmate in the world I would choose.” 

They took a turn in silence, and then she 
stopped short and looked him full in the face. 

“Christopher, you knew all about Godfrey 
Allen ; but you may have forgotten — I can’t for- 
get ; I never shall. For all I know, he may be 
dead, but his memory will never be dead to me. 
No one can ever be to me what he was.” 

Christopher bowed his head. “I know all,” he 
said, “and I would not wish you to forget. I am 
content with you as you are.” 

“Dear, noble soul,” she answered, putting her 
hand in his. “Then you must take me as I am.” 

Not long after the invalid faded away, one 
bright spring morning, when the east wind was 
blowing down the cliff, and the sea shimmering 
in the treacherous sunny glare. 

A sultry June day in the soldiers’ recreation- 
room of the 30th Hussars at Paltanpore. A 
burning wind blowing across barracks, with a 
breath like a furnace blast. Inside, thanks to the 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 249 

punkahs and the “kuskas tatties,” screens in the 
doorways kept constantly wet, and through 
which the hot wind blew cool, the glass is only 
ninety-eight degrees. A few men in white drill 
uniform lounging about. One was seated at a 
table idly turning over an English paper, and 
reads as follows : 

“On the — th May, at St. Stephen’s, Star- 
combe, by the Rev. David Carr, uncle of the 
bride, the Rev. Christopher Trent, vicar of St. 
Estaphe’s in the East, to Mabel, elder daughter 
of the late Rev. Theophilus Carr, rector of Bees- 
ton, Berkshire.” 

The reader stares at the notice vacantly, then 
starts up like a madman, with a muttered oath. 

That night he makes a beast of himself in the 
bazaar, and is taken up by the picket mad drunk, 
and finds himself presently lodged in the cells for 
ninety-six hours. 

The summer saw Mabel settled at St. Es- 
taphe’s in the East, in a little dreary house in a 
dull little square, an oasis of respectability among 
the surrounding desert of squalor and misery. 
AH the gay world was out Qf town. The pave- 


250 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

ment was baking under the sun of a very hot 
August, and the world of brick and mortar 
seemed like a furnace to our country mouse. 
But Mabel was happy, happier, perhaps, than she 
had ever been since that fateful evening by 
the boathouse. She was very busy. The parish- 
ioners of St. Estaphe’s never went out of town, 
and the harvest was very plentiful and the labor- 
ers very few. She worked among a population 
for whom there is no “season,” and with whom 
care and want are ever at home. 

But they gradually got to know her, and some 
of them to love her. A glimpse of the tall, 
graceful figure in its sober dress passing down 
some squalid court sent a thrill to many a care- 
laden heart that had almost forgotten how to 
feel pleased with anything but drink, while a 
look from those sweet eyes of hers brought com- 
fort to many a sorrow-crushed heart that had 
ceased to expect any. And so on through the 
winter and through another summer. Not much 
time for thought or for looking back into the 
closed chapter of might-have-beens of the past. 

One autumn evening Christopher Trent 
mounted his doorsteps, put his latchkey into his 
front door, opened it, and walked with a step 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 


2 S 1 


that was very weary into the dining-room, where 
Mabel stood at the urn, and high tea was spread 
on the table. 

He threw himself into a chair, tired out. She 
brought him his slippers and a cup of tea. She 
stroked his thin hair, already plentifully streaked 
with gray, with a sweet smile that cheered him. 

“My wife/' he murmured, holding her hand, 
“what should I do without you?” Then he 
roused himself. 

“That's a bad case of fever among the 
O’Learys down in Crumble Alley. I’m afraid 
it’s typhus. They sent for me from the night- 
school. It’s the eldest boy that’s down, and the 
mother was like a mad creature. I promised I’d 
go back there this evening, for I managed to 
soothe them both a little.” 

“You must have something to eat first,” was 
all her answer. 

Within three weeks Christopher Trent had 
caught the fever from the Irish boy, and lay on 
his deathbed. His life, so nobly sacrificed, was 
ebbing fast. His last thoughts, his last words, 
were for his poor people; he grudged leaving 
them so, they needed him so sorely still. But 
his last look — as a smile of heavenly peacefulness 


25 2 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 

which had its origin in things unseen, overspread 
his dying face — was for Mabel. 

The ist of January in India, Empress Day. 
On the brigade parade ground at Paltanpore all 
the troops are drawn up for the usual review. 
The General, Sir Harry Blague, of Mutiny 
renown, a handsome soldierly figure, with iron- 
gray mustache and close-cropped gray hair, rides 
down the line with his staff. First, he passed 
the horse artillery, a chestnut battery, very 
smart. Then came the 30th Hussars, the crack- 
est cavalry corps in India. They have an Irish 
earl for their adjutant, and a sprinkling of scions 
of aristocracy among the officers, though the 
present colonel is only Wilking, son of the great 
furnishing firm. Indeed, they look a smart set 
of men in their dark tunics with yellow froggings, 
and the brass spikes of the white helmets glitter- 
ing in the sun, while the horses champ at their 
bits. Then the general moves on down the line, 
inspecting the field artillery, an English infantry 
regiment in scarlet standing like a wall, and then 
a couple of native infantry corps in scarlet, with 
gay pugrees, looking most workmanlike. 

Facing the line, gathered about the saluting 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 


2 53 


post, where the royal standard floats aloft, is a 
mass of spectators in carriages, on horseback, and 
the natives in gay little canopied country carts. 
At intervals, keeping back the crowd, stand erect 
and motionless troopers of the 30th Hussars. 

Behind one of these is a carriage, and from its 
occupants proceeds the following conversation: 

“Who’s the tall woman on the chestnut Arab 
by the* flagstaff?” 

“Oh! don’t you know? That is the good-look- 
ing widow just out from home— Mrs. Trent, I 
think, her name is.” 

“Oh! yes, I know; she’s the pretty Mrs. Field- 
ing’s sister in the 120th. That’s the General’s 
Arab she’s riding. They say he’s very much 
smitten with her!” 

The trooper in front, standing like a statue, 
strained his ears to catch all this. His cheeks 
paled for a moment under their tan, and his eyes 
eagerly sought out the object of their remarks, 
and rested long upon her. 

He was only Private Godfrey, nothing more, 
and never would be anything more. He was 
evidently a gentleman by education ; there were 
many such in the ranks of the 30th Hussars. 
When he first joined some years before, his cap- 


254 FAITHFUL UNTO DBA TH. 

tain, as usual, tried to give him a helping hand. 
But he was a disappointing man, strangely re- 
served and unsociable with his comrades, and 
with no wish to raise himself. From time to 
time he would break out into fits of wildness 
which would keep him back from the promotion 
he otherwise would naturally have obtained. 
There was no depending on him. Of course 
with his education he might have become a clerk 
had he chosen, and worked up in that line. But 
he seemed to have no incentive for getting on at 
all, though he was a good rider and a smart sol- 
dier if he chose. So finally they let him alone, 
and there he stuck, a private. 

The General now returned to the center of the 
long line, which stretched away on the dusty, 
sandy plain. The troops presented arms and 
carried swords in a general salute, while the 
band, massed in the center, played “God save 
the Queen.” 

Then the heavy guns boomed out so many 
rounds, and were followed by the feature of the 
day, the feu de joie . All along the infantry line 
flashes of smoke, pointed skyward, followed by 
the sharp report, rush with the utmost precision 


. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 255 

up the front rank, and then back again down the 
rear rank. 

The chestnut Arab which carries Mabel Trent 
does not understand all this at all. He is very 
fresh, and starts, plunges, and backs. At the sec- 
ond feu de joie , he twists round and round in 
terror, but when the whole mass of troops take 
off their helmets, and wave them, giving three 
cheers for the Empress, it is too much for him. 
He lowers his head, kicks out, and bolts away 
from the dreaded sight, scattering the crowd 
before him. His first kick-up unseats Mabel, but 
her habit catches in the pommel and she is 
dragged along head downward, a terrifying sight ! 

But as the Arab nears where Private Godfrey 
is keeping the ground, the latter dexterously 
gets in his way, and arrests his course; then, 
watching his opportunity, gets alongside and 
seizes the bridle. Flinging himself from his own 
horse he frees Mabel, bruised and cut, and lays 
her on the ground. A crowd of friends and doc- 
tors, and help in general, close round her, while 
he remounts his horse and falls back into his 
place again. 

To everyone’s surprise Sir Harry Blague stops 


25 6 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

the parade till he has seen Mabel carried away 
home under proper care, and ascertained that she 
is not seriously hurt. 

After the march past is over the regiments file 
away back to barracks. An aid-de-camp gallops 
up to Colonel Wilkins, who calls up the Adju- 
tant. “The General wants to know who stopped 
Mrs. Trent’s horse?” 

Private Godfrey makes no sign, and they are 
unable to find out who it is, till, at the stable- 
hour which follows, a comrade divulges. 

Colonel Wilkins sent the name up with these 
comments : 

“A queer character, very reserved and morose, 
supposed to be a gentleman, but no good, most 
untrustworthy.” 

The name of the trooper who had saved her 
life came, of- course, to Mabel’s ears. It struck 
her ear familiarly. Was it possible it could be 
he? She reflected for a moment. If it was he 
would make some sign. She sent word to offer 
him a reward for his presence of mind. But it 
was declined with thanks. He would not come 
to receive it. It could not, then, be he. Also, 
Colonel Wilkins’s account of Private Godfrey 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 257 

hardly suited the bright, high-spirited Godfrey 
Allen she had known and loved. 

Weeks rolled on. Sir Harry Blague’s atten- 
tions became more and more marked. Mabel 
dreaded every day that he would declare himself 
and put an end to the pleasant friendship be- 
tween them, for she sincerely liked the gallant 
old soldier. 

Mabel’s life at Paltanpore was not unhappy. 
She was a great help to her sister, worried with 
many babies, small means, and bad health, and 
no longer pretty and gay. The women and 
children of her brother-in-law’s regiment found in 
her also a kind, sympathizing friend, as they 
battled with the climate and exile and tempta- 
tion. The small world of Paltanpore liked her 
too, for she was never given to uncharitableness 
and scandal-mongering, and her large heart sym- 
pathized with all. 

One day another big parade. This time a 
sham fight. Mabel viewed the mimic fray, rid- 
ing about with the General and his staff, 
mounted this time on a thoroughly reliable pony. 
The feature of the day was a charge by the 30th 
Hussars, in which a soldier was thrown by his 


258 FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 

horse coming down in a hole, ridden over, and 
badly hurt. 

That evening about dinner time came the mes- 
sage Mabel had waited for all these years. It 
came at last. 

Private Godfrey, the soldier who had been 
fatally hurt that morning, was dying, and had 
got permission for Mrs. Trent to come and see him. 

“She drove at once down to the hospital under 
a bright full moon, which silvered the white 
dusty road and cast inky shadows. A moon you 
could see to read by. 

A long, bare, whitewashed room, the many 
doors open admitting the evening breeze, for the 
weather was already getting hot. Native hospi- 
tal attendants in blue and red pugrees glided 
about with bare feet. A hospital sergeant in 
uniform led her to a small room on one side, 
where a dim lamp enabled her to see the figure 
lying on the narrow bed, and the face tossing on 
the pillow. 

Would she have recognized it? Had she not 
guessed it was he? Hardly, perhaps. It was so 
worn and tanned, and the hair so thin and griz- 
zled. Only the eyes, as they opened now and 
then, were the same. 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 259 

“I don’t think he’ll last the night,” said the 
apothecary to her as he came his round. The 
place was very quiet. A couple of orderlies from 
the dying man’s own regiment waited about in 
attendance on him. But he was no special chum 
or favorite with anyone, and they seemed merely 
to look upon their presence there as a matter of 
duty. 

Mabel knelt down by the bedside, resting her 
hands on the coarse brown blanket. Did he 
know her? He seemed so restless; in such pain. 
But nothing could be done for him that had not 
been done. She took his hand, already growing 
clammy, and called him softly by name. This 
seemed to rouse him ; his eyes assumed a sensi- 
ble look, and rested long upon her. Then a 
smile spread over the weary face, and he tried to 
speak, and with a great effort he said, “Mabel! 
At last!” 

After that he seemed quieter, but gradually 
sinking. All through the night she sat by his 
bed, wiping his brow, moistening his lips, and 
holding his hand. If she let go her hold he 
seemed to search for her. 

One hour after another was struck on the gong 
at the guardroom in barracks, and the sentry’s 


260 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEA Ttf. 


challenge of “Twelve o’clock, and all’s well!” 
was caught up and repeated hourly in the still 
night. Pariah dogs bayed at the moon, and the 
jackals’ chorus, 

Like crying babe or beaten hound, 

or, as Byron has it, 

Like sound of midnight revelry, 

echoed weirdly from some deserted spot. The 
moonlight, flooding one veranda, traveled grad- 
ually round the building, and came in at the 
opposite one. 

It was getting near morning. Already a faint 
gray streak showed in the east, and the inevita- 
ble crows were awake and beginning to caw in 
the trees. 

Suddenly Godfrey roused himself again. A 
look came over him of his own self so many 
years ago. The fine eyes turned on Mabel with 
their old fire. Bending down to catch his words, 
his voice, though weak, seemed to her to have its 
old ring. 

“I’ve spent a wasted life, Mabel, but I’ve been 
true to you. Faithful to death — good-by — kiss 
me — Mab ” 


It was the last flicker. Even as she pressed 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH. 


261 


her lips on his there was a faint sigh, and the 
once strong hand relaxed its grasp of hers. 
Then someone came and led her away. 

The next evening at sunset a funeral party 
entered the military cemetery of Paltanpore. 

An Indian graveyard is not a lovely spot. 
Four high whitewashed walls keep out the 
jackals. Inside on one side are a crowd of monu- 
ments, on the other rows of nameless graves. 
Straight walls bisect the square, bordered with 
dusty, stunted shrubs, a few mango or cypress 
trees where the crows caw. Whether or not the 
place is well kept and cared for depends entirely 
on the chaplains, and they come and go. Here 
are no loving friends always living close at hand 
to wander in with sweet memorial flowers, for 
most of the dead have been laid here by stran- 
gers, and no eye that once loved them will ever 
look upon their graves. 

Outside the gate stops the gun-carriage, with 
its six artillery horses and riders. The band 
ceases the “Dead March in Saul,” to which the 
long procession had slowly paced from the hos- 
pital. The couple of officers belonging to the 
dead man’s troop, who vote the whole thing a 
bore and want to be off to polo, stand chatting, 


262 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 


while the plain coffin covered with the union 
jack, with the sword and helmet of the deceased 
upon it, is lifted down and borne upon the shouh 
ders of six comrades. Outside the gate, too, 
waits “the masterless steed,” which has been led 
behind the coffin with the jack-boots reversed in 
the stirrups. The chaplain comes to meet the 
cortege. It is a sickly year in Paltanpore, and he 
has many funerals. He hurries over the service 
as he leads the way to one of the two graves 
always kept ready and open in every Indian cem- 
etery. Behind the coffin follow the troop in full 
dress, and on one side the grave the firing party 
range themselves. 

A tall woman’s figure in black is hidden be- 
hind a tree not far off. She hears the chaplain’s 
voice gabbling the service, through the short 
Indian twilight which is already falling. Then 
the sharp report of a volley of carbines startles 
the rooks who are going to bed. Then the band 
strikes up a few bars of the “Resurrection,” then 
another volley rends the air, a few more bars, and 
a final volley. And then the whole of the grand 
old air rings out its message of hope and peace. 
Mabel’s eyes look up to the dark blue vault over- 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 263 

head, where the stars are beginning to twinkle, 
and feels that indeed yet another reveille trumpet- 
call will sound again for her soldier and herself. 
She stands there yet awhile, musing mournfully, 
but tearlessly. Women, like her, who have suf- 
fered much, have exhausted their tears. 

Presently, outside the cemetery, she hears the 
band striking up again, but this time some merry 
popular air, which jars upon her. The released 
officers gallop off, and Private Godfrey is as good 
as forgotten. 

Mabel lays a large white cross of roses on the 
grave which two half-naked natives have just 
finished filling in, and then turns to walk home 
up the now moonlit Mall. 

Presently she hears a horse canter up behind 
her and stop. The General jumps down and 
gives it to the native groom. 

“Good-evening, Mrs. Trent. I met your car- 
riage going home just now, and they told me 
that I should find you walking here. I am so 
glad to have the opportunity of speaking to you 
alone. It is what I have been looking for so 
long.” 

She gave a gasp as if in pain. The man did, 


26-4 FAITHFUL UNTO DEA TH 

indeed, pain her by speaking to her now, and it 
pained her, too, to have to give him pain. 

“I am a battered-about old fellow,” he con- 
tinued, “and you are yet young and lovely. I 
feel it is presumptuous for me to dare to speak to 
you at all. But I want to offer you my heart 
with all the devotion a younger man could pos- 
sibly feel, and to entreat you to make the re- 
mainder of my life happy. I have never cared 
for any woman before, or thought of any as I 
think of you,” he added softly. 

“But you care for me, I feel you do. Then 
listen to my story,” she replied, turning round 
upon him. And standing there in the moon- 
light, with her sweet eyes fixed earnestly upon 
him, she told him all. As she proceeded, the 
fine old gray head, which had always been held 
so high before all the world, bent lower and 
lower in despair, and the steady hands nervously 
drew patterns with the cane in the dust. 

When she had ended, the old soldier raised her 
hand reverently to his lips, and left her in silence. 

Far away from the lonely, nameless grave at 
Paltanpore, one of the most devoted of the zeal- 


FAITHFUL UNTO DBA TH. 265 

ous sisterhood of St. Estaphe’s in the East, is Sis- 
ter Mabel, toiling on 

O’er moor, o’er fen, o’er crag, o’er torrent, till 
The night is gone ; 

And with the dawn those angel faces smile 
That I have loved long since and lost awhile. 


» 











THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 


A STORY FOUNDED ON FACT. 


Colonel Rylstone was one of the best 
known and most popular men in Blankshire. 
Every winter he came down to a little hunting- 
box in the center of the best part of the country, 
and no one rode harder or was more genial and 
cheery in the hunting-field. Every autumn he 
had a moor in Scotland, and three or four Blank- 
shire men were sure to be among the succession 
of guns he entertained there. Yet Rylstone, 
with all his popularity, was the despair of the 
mammas of Blankshire who possessed marriage- 
able daughters. Still in the prime of life, good- 
looking, well off, and good-tempered, he seemed 
only to need a wife to make him quite perfect. 
But he appeared absolutely impervious to the 
charms of the Blankshire maidens. He would fill 


266 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 26 7 

his little house with nice men for the hunt ball in 
the winter, and be profuse with theater dinners and 
Hurlingham and Sandown tickets to his Blank- 
shire friends who came up in the season. But 
thus far he would go, and no further; and Blank- 
shire matrons heaved sighs of despair when they 
spoke of him. Why on earth didn’t he marry? 

One August, when all the gay world is at 
Cowes or Homburg, I happened to find myself 
down at Dressington-by-the-Sea from Saturday 
till Monday. Everyone knows what Dressing- 
ton is like the first week in August ; elaborately 
got-up Jewesses with foolish Gentile youths in 
tow ; overdressed Gentile maidens, who have 
temporarily ensnared Jewish youth — short, 
swarthy, and irreproachably got-up, oozing money 
from every pore. Among such a horde on the 
parade, after church, I was amazed to run against 
Colonel Rylstone, of all men under the sun; and 
Colonel Rylstone walking by the side of a bath 
chair ! 

Now, the bath chair contained neither an aged 
relative likely to pop off suddenly with the gout 
nor a pretty and interesting invalid. In it sat a 
man whose age would be difficult to define. His 


268 the ha unted bungalo w. 

face looked young, though his hair and mustache 
were perfectly white. His eye was vacant and 
lackluster, his expression utterly vague and 
meaningless, and his face was contorted every 
few moments by a terrible twitch. A more dis- 
tressing object could hardly be seen. 

Colonel Rylstone’s greeting was cheery and 
cordial, but he followed it up by no invitation to 
come and look him up at his hotel or to dine 
with him. It was by a mere accident I found he 
was staying at The Grand, where I was, and even 
then I could see nothing of him. He was in 
constant attendance on the shattered wreck of 
humanity in the bath chair. He ate with him, 
sat with him, walked with him, and it was only, I 
presume, after he had seen him put to bed by his 
male attendant that the Colonel turned up late in 
the smoking room. He drew a chair up to mine, 
and lit a cigar, with a worn, distressed look in his 
face, very foreign to his usu^l expression. 

“You look tired, Rylstone,” said I. “Down 
here on duty, I suppose?” 

“Yes, indeed, on duty — a most painful, dis- 
tressing duty, one which darkens my whole life, 
or rather the original cause of it does. Did you 
see that poor fellow in the chair?” 


THE HA UN TED B UNGALO W. 269 

“I did, indeed.” 

“Well, some twenty years ago he was the 
crack subaltern of my old corps, the Crimson 
Cuirassiers, and a better fellow, a smarter soldier, 
and a finer rider you couldn’t find in all the three 
Presidencies. We were quartered in India then, 
at Punkahpore.” 

“His head seems affected now. How did it 
happen? Drink?” 

“Never met a soberer fellow than Alan Ard- 
shiel. No, it was a joke, a blackguardly practical 
joke. I’ll tell you about it, if you like. If you 
thoughtless young fellows, with your chaff and 
your practical jokes, were to take a lesson from it, 
it might do some good.” 

Rylstone in a moralizing mood was something 
so new to me that it was with some curiosity I 
prepared to hear his story, while he poured him- 
self out a preliminary whisky and soda. 

“Punkahpore was not a lively station as regards 
society,” began the Colonel. “There were plenty 
of black buck to shoot and pig to stick, but not 
many ladies to flirt with. The Crimsons were 
not a very much married corps. The Colonel’s 
wife was in England, and the Major’s too much 
occupied with her babies to be interesting so- 


270 THE HA UN TED B UNGALO W. 

dally. The Commissioner’s wife was fat and 
pompous, and the police officer’s decidedly 
touched with the ‘tar-brush,’ as we say in the 
East. So there was much rejoicing among us 
youngsters when Alice Thornlegh, the doctor’s 
daughter, came out to him from her school at 
home. She was just eighteen, and such a pretty 
girl, with a fresh peach-like complexion and gold- 
brown hair, a ‘sight for sair een’ to us, sick of the 
pasty-faced beauties of the East ; and she was so 
deliciously fresh to everything, so overflowing 
with spirits and fun, that she seemed to breathe 
fresh life into the social languor and stagnation 
of Punkahpore. 

“Of course all we subalterns fell in love with her 
at once. For the space of about a month she re- 
tained a paramount place in all our affections, and 
we all hated and all were jealous each of the 
other. But, after that time, as is the manner of 
healthy British boys, soldiering, sport, and cricket 
resumed their natural sway over us. But not 
over all. On three of us Miss Thornlegh had 
made a more durable impression. Charley Chiv- 
erton was one; the senior subaltern, a dark- 
browed, rather morose fellow, given to bullying 
at school, fellows who had been with him at 


THE HA UN TED B UNGALO W. 2 7 1 

Eton said, and certainly not popular in the regi- 
met. Nobody ever went, in any scrape or diffi- 
culty, to Chiverton for help. No one ever -ap- 
pealed to him to do a turn of duty or a guard for 
him ; for Chiverton would certainly have found 
some excuse for declining assistance. But he 
was a good-looking fellow enough, and for a 
while Miss Thornlegh seemed to admire his dark, 
inscrutable eyes, and rode and walked with him a 
good deal, and chose him on her side for croquet. 

Alan Ardshiel was quite as much devoted to 
the pretty Alice as Chiverton, but, unlike Chiver- 
ton, he did not attempt to conceal it. His was 
a sunny, frank nature, and he was too palpably 
happy in her society, too evidently wretched 
away from her presence, for his penchant not to 
be known all over barracks. 

“Ardshiel was my great chum ; we always did 
everything together, and shared a bungalow. If 
it had been anyone but he, I might, perhaps, 
have taken a more prominent position in the race 
for Miss Thornlegh’s favor. But how could I 
find it in my heart to compete against old Alan? 
And then, one evening, I found out quite by 
accident that it would have been perfectly use- 
less, for he was first favorite. 


272 THE HA UN TED B UNGALO IV. 

“We had been to a moonlight picnic, to the 
ruins of the Dilkusha, a ruined palace a few miles 
away from Punkahpore. We had the table 
placed on the stone terrace, the flags of which 
were crumbling and splitting, and were the noon- 
tide haunt of lizards. The regimental band 
played from a shaky stand in the quaint, formal 
garden, a mass of weeds and creepers. The glo- 
rious tropical moonlight flooded the whole scene, 
making everything as clear as day, and the old 
palace stood out as if built of marble instead of 
stucco. 

“After dinner, as we sat smoking on the ter- 
race, I discovered Miss Thornlegh was missing, 
and the question was with whom , for Chiverton 
and Ardshief had likewise vanished. I consid- 
ered it my duty to ascertain with which she was 
walking round the weed-grown paths. If it was 
with my chum, nothing should induce me to 
spoil sport. But if it was with Chiverton — well, 
then 

“The shadows that the brilliant moonlight cast 
under the orange and mango trees, and over the 
stagnant green watef in the stone-edged tanks, 
were black as ink. I lit a cigarette, and wan- 
dered on my search. The crickets whirred in the 


THE HA UNTED B UNGALO IV. 273 

branches overhead, the disturbed frogs splashed 
in the water, as I passed by ; the distant bay of 
a pariah dog, or howl of a jackal, echoed over 
the plain. Then there came a low murmur of 
voices. Two people were whispering, their 
heads very close together, and across the tank, 
on a stone bench, I dimly discerned two figures 
in the shadow. The next moment I recognized 
their voices. It was Ardshiel and Alice. Never 
mind what they were saying, my boy. Very 
much what you and I would say under the same 
circumstances to the girl we loved, I fancy. It 
was enough for me, and I turned away, very sick 
at heart. As I did so, Chiverton stepped out of 
the shadow not many yards ahead of me. I saw 
his face as he crossed a patch of moonlight, and a 
more evil expression I never beheld. He must 
have overheard Alice and Ardshiel’s conversation 
as plainly as I had. 

“I went back to my bungalow. I had no heart 
for the picnic now, the chatter of the party 
would be intolerable. Chiverton’s bungalow was 
next to ours, and he must have come back soon 
after I did, and have had an altercation about 
something with one of his servants, for I heard 
sounds of angry voices, much bad Hindoostanee, 


2 74 THE HA UN TED B UNGALO W. 

and worse language, accompanied by the yells of 
the wretched domestic who was being chastised. 
The man went to hospital next morning, sick. 

“Ardshiel returned very late, and in exuberant 
spirits. He came into my room and wanted to 
talk. But I pretended to be asleep. 

“The following afternoon Mrs. Thornlegh and 
the doctor had a croquet party on the carefully 
tended bit of lawn in front of their bungalow, 
which had to be irrigated every night by little 
runnels from the well, to be kept green at all. I 
did not play, but took a melancholy pleasure in 
watching the way in which Chiverton, with the 
whity-brown wife of the police-officer on his side, 
mercilessly croqueted Ardshiel, who was playing 
with Miss Thornlegh. After the game we all sat 
in the veranda and discussed cigars and pegs, in 
the short Indian twilight. Somehow or other, 
by one of those unaccountable freaks of fate 
which so often seriously affect our lives, the 
conversation fell on ghosts and ghost stories. 

“ ‘India’s not a bit ghostly or weird,’ remarked 
Miss Alice. ‘I don’t believe there’s such a thing 
as a real, proper, bloodcurdling ghost in all the 
country.’ 

“‘Neither do I,’ echoed Ardshiel, who would 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 27$ 

have agreed with her if she had sworn black was 
white. ‘I never heard of an Indian ghost.’ 

‘“Oh, but I have/ put in the Commissioner’s 
wife, a fat lady who considered herself of great 
local importance, and had a many years’ expe- 
rience of the country. ‘Why, in this very station 
there’s one.’ 

“ ‘Indeed?’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ Where ?’ 

“ ‘What?’ 

“ ‘Do tell !’ cried everybody at once. 

“Mrs. Postlethwaite was only too delighted to 
air her knowledge. She nodded sagely. 

“ ‘Well, and indeed, I’ve always been told that 
that big old bungalow, next to the Native Infan- 
try lines, is haunted.’ 

“‘What by? What kind of ghost? Black or 
white?’ 

“ ‘Oh, Mrs. Postlethwaite, how awfully interest- 
ing!’ added Alice Thornlegh. 

“ ‘Haunted by many ghosts,’ pursued the great 
lady, ‘I’ve always heard say, ever since my hus- 
band the Commissioner first came to this district. 
There was a massacre of European women and 
children there in the Mutiny time. The rebels 
caught them and shut them up there, and then 


276 THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW . 

slaughtered them. That is certain, anyhow. 
And the bungalow has never been lived in since, 
and no natives will go near it after dark. They 
say it’s haunted.’ 

‘“Oh, dear, I feel quite frightened!’ cried Miss 
Thornlegh. 

“It was very dusk in the dim veranda, but I 
could have sworn that Ardshiel caught her hand 
and held it in his to reassure her. 

‘“What nonsense!’ he said. ‘I don’t believe 
it. These niggers are such liars and such cow- 
ards.’ 

“ ‘Not more superstitious than some of you 
Highlanders are,’ sneered Chiverton. ‘With all 
your bragging, I don’t believe you’d spend the 
night there yourself, Ardshiel.’ 

“The Scotchman’s blood was up. 

“‘If we Highlanders are superstitious, we are, 
anyhow, just as plucky as you cockneys, and 
more so, as I’ll soon show you. What do you 
lay me I don’t sleep in that bungalow to-night, 
Chiverton?’ 

“Chiverton laughed a low, unpleasant laugh. 

“‘My dear fellow, I really don’t want to rob 
you.’ 

“Then I’ll do it without any money on, as 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW . 


277 


you’re so deuced certain about it. Bragging, 
indeed ! Do you suppose I care a rap for a pack 
of natives’ lies?’ 

“Chiverton got up and lit a cigar slowly. 

‘“Nothing easier than to prove you don’t, my 
dear fellow. In the meantime, I must say good- 
evening, Mrs. Thornlegh. I hear the “dress” for 
mess sounding,’ and he walked off slowly. 

“ ‘Confound that fellow, with his irritating 
sneers and cool ways!’ said Ardshiel. ‘But he’ll 
crow in a different key to-morrow morning, for I 
shall send my bed over to the old bungalow to- 
night, and sleep there.’ 

“Alice looked imploringly into his face. 

“‘You wouldn’t have that fellow Chiverton 
think me a coward, would you?’- he added. 

“‘No; certainly not,’ I put in. ‘I’ll go and 
sleep there, too. He might be up to some larks, 
if you were alone — who knows?’ 

“ ‘But, Mr. Ardshiel,’ Alice added piteously, 
‘supposing it’s true — supposing there is some- 
thing — those poor creatures massacred — it’s hor- 
rible !’ 

“‘It was horrible, you mean, Miss Thornlegh,’ 
Ardshiel corrected, in a softer tone. ‘But don’t 
be alarmed, I beg of you. That frightens me 


278 THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 

much more than any idea of ghosts. It’s not 
very likely that we shall be disturbed by any- 
thing but flying foxes and owls, or perhaps a 
jackal or two ; and I think Rylstone and I are a 
match for any other flesh-and-blood visitors. I’ll 
come over to chota hazari to-morrow morning, 
after your ride, and tell you all about it.’ 

“Thus we said good-night and departed, with 
many a gibe and jest flung back as we walked 
down the drive. I can see Alice Thornlegh now, 
standing framed in the creeper-covered arch of 
the veranda, and waving her hand to us. 

“Of course our adventure was an excuse for 
champagne at mess, and after dinner we were 
escorted to our new quarters by quite a posse of 
Cuirassiers, with lanterns. Our bearers had car- 
ried our beds there in the daylight, but nothing 
would induce a single native to accompany us 
there that night. 

“The haunted bungalow was at some distance 
from the other European residences. It was all 
that was left of the station after the rising The 
other houses had been fired and burnt to the 
ground. Only this one remained intact, for the 
ghastly reason that it had served as the prison 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 279 

and the slaughter-house of the helpless European 
females. 

“It stood back some way from the road ; the 
drive was grass-grown and overhung with un- 
tended trees. The roof was falling in in places, 
the veranda overgrown with creepers. It cer- 
tainly did not look inviting. 

“ ‘We are much more likely to be bitten by a 
krait than to be visited by ghosts!’ cried Ard- 
shiel. ‘Shoo ! shoo !’ and with a cheery yell he 
chased out a great white owl, which fled hooting. 

“Our little camp-beds had been placed in the 
middle of the huge center room of the bungalow, 
a gaunt apartment with the lofty ceiling sup- 
ported on four large pillars, which threw queer 
shadows about the room. 

“One by one our escort departed, and we 
found ourselves alone, the feeble flicker of a 
native oil-lamp alone lighting up the apartment. 
Ardshiel threw himself on to his bed. 

“‘By Jove!’ he cried, ‘I swore I’d sleep in this 
haunted bungalow, and I shall do it too, for I 
never felt more sleepy in my life ; the champagne 
went pretty freely round at mess, and I was up 
at four this morning walking till breakfast after 


28 o 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW . 


the snipe out at Paniput Jheel. So, good-night, 
old chap.’ 

“He pulled off his mess jacket, and in five min- 
utes I heard him snoring. Ardshiel always was 
such a fellow to sleep! 

“But I was more wakeful. A bat would keep 
skimming past my face ; an owl hooted at regu- 
lar intervals in a mango tree outside. I had an 
uneasy feeling that the place was full of noxious 
insects and reptiles, if of nothing worse. The 
jackal chorus in a corner of the deserted com- 
pound sounded weird and eerie. But at last I 
dozed, and then, it seemed to me, I had a dream. 
I dreamt Chiverton stole into the room — Chiver- 
ton, who had not come with the rest to see us 
installed in our ghostly quarters. I dreamt I saw 
him bending for a long time over the bed on 
which Ardshiel lay sleeping peacefully — the 
sleep of the light-hearted and happy. It was 
a fearfully vivid dream — could it have been 
reality? 

“After that I must have slept soundly, for 
when I woke again I awoke sharp and alert, 
startled into sudden and complete consciousness 
by the most appalling sound mind can conceive. 
It was a wild shriek as of some creature in mortal 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW . 281 

peril — it was the heart-rending cry of a child in 
agony. 

“I sprang out of bed in a second, and as I did 
so my foot touched something on the floor — 
something cold and clammy — not a toad or a 
snake — but, oh, horror! clearly visible by the 
flickering lamp, a child’s foot, cut off and gory, 
but still encased in its little shoe; and all around 
the floor was covered with splashes of blood. 

'‘I stood a few seconds struck still with horror. 
Then, again, the horrible cry of torture sounded, 
close behind me this time, and, impelled by an 
irresistible terror — the like of which I had never 
felt before, and pray Heaven I may never feel 
again — I fled into the veranda, out into the 
night, down the drive. On the highroad I 
stumbled and fell; my overtaxed nerves gave 
way, and I fainted. 

“The dawn was breaking in the east when a 
coolie going to work found me, and gave the 
alarm to the guard. I only felt thoroughly my- 
self again when I found myself on a bed in the 
guard-room, with wet cloths on my head. 

‘‘Then only did the cowardice of my flight 
break upon me in all its enormity. 

“‘Ardshiel!’ I cried. ‘For God’s sake go and 


282 THE haunted bungalow. 

look for Mr. Ardshiel! He’s still in that awful 
room !’ 

“They went to look for him, and they found — 
[here Colonel Rylstone’s voice broke, and he was 
a moment or two before he could proceed] — they 
found ‘the thing’ you saw in the bath chair to- 
day, with blanched hair, and vacant grin and chat- 
ter, and palsied features. What he saw, what 
passed in that room, no one will ever know this 
side of eternity, for that shattered wreck was all 
that was left of my cheery, sunny, happy chum.” 

“But why on earth didn’t he make a bolt for 
it, as you did?” I asked. 

“Why?” repeated Rylstone, and he sat bolt 
upright in his chair and glared at me. “Why? 
Because when they found him he was hound hand 
and foot, and tied dozvn into his bed /” 

There was a silence, and Rylstone took an- 
other peg, a pretty strong one. 

“And what became of Chiverton?” I asked, 
after a pause. 

“That is not his real name. If I were to tell it 
you you would recognize a man well known in 
the service, an able soldier, who has climbed to 
the top rungs of the ladder. Such is life !” 


THE HAUNTED BUNGALOW. 283 

I hesitated a moment, and then I asked — 
“And Alice?” 

Rylstone’s voice changed from a bitter tone to 
a soft one. 

“That autumn the cholera swooped down on 
Punkahpore. We Crimsons were sent out hur- 
riedly into cholera camp in small detachments. 
When I got back to the station, after some 
weeks, Alice was lying between the four mud 
whitewashed walls of an Indian cemetery.” 


CHRISTMAS WITH THE CRIM- 
SON CUIRASSIERS. 


It was the last night of the voyage. With 
to-morrow’s dawn the lookout on the maintop 
would spy the mighty Ghauts, the ramparts of 
India, fringing the eastern sky. It was a per- 
fectly still, warm, tropical night, dark as Erebus, 
save for the light of the star-strewn heavens. 
Two young people leant over the side of the ves- 
sel watching the white phosphorescent pathway 
which stretched behind the stern. 

“I’m awfully sorry the voyage is over,” quoth 
he. “I wish it would last forever.” 

The girl’s face clouded. 

“I am too; it has been great fun, and I don’t 
quite know what is coming next. You are going 
back to your regiment, your friends, your 
horses ” 

“And you to your father?” 

“Who is only a name to me. I have not seen 

>84 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 285 

him since my mother died, when I was only 
three. And then I’m told he‘s very difficult to 
get on with, though perhaps I ought not to say 
so. But they call him the Iron Colonel, you 
know, and then a father is not like a mother; 
and I’ve no mother, I’ve nobody.” 

Her voice was so sad, though it was too dark 
for him to see her face well, close as he was to 
her, that Jack Harrage would hardly have been 
human if he had not been tempted, more 
strongly than he had been all the voyage, to say 
something very foolish and very irrevocable. 

But fortunately at this juncture the tea-bell 
rang, and a clatter of teacups, enough to drown 
any sentiment, came up through the skylight. 
In addition, Cramwell, the young competition- 
wallah, who didn’t like Jack and did like Nina, 
came up and asked the latter if she was not 
going to have any tea. So all Harrage could 
whisper, as they all moved down the deck, was: 

“Don’t say you’ve no friends. You know you 
have devoted ones. Perhaps some of them will 
come and look you up at Dustypore, if they 
may.” 

All the answer he got was a look, but that 
seemed to satisfy him. 


286 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

Surely someone or other was very much to 
blame for having, in the twenty-eight days during 
which they had been cooped up together on the 
P. & O., allowed this girl of eighteen, fresh from 
school, and this penniless subaltern in an infantry 
regiment, to fall thus irretrievably in love with 
each other. But, anyhow, the mischief was done. 

The Crimson Cuirassiers were not much mar- 
ried, or much addicted to ladies’ society. But 
they happened this Christmas to find themselves 
stationed at that extremely solitary little place, 
Dustypore, which, in the native mind, is asso- 
ciated with the birth of Krishna; in the Euro- 
pean, with the death of wild boars. There was 
no other regiment, and only three ladies in the 
place. One was the police officer’s wife, 
“touched with the tar brush,” as the saying is, 
and who had never been out of India; the sec- 
ond was the Quartermaster’s wife, whose mind 
centered in her kitchen; and the third was the 
Collector’s wife, with no mind at all, only a 
giggle. 

Such being the state of affairs, it is to this day 
involved in mystery as to who started the idea 
of a ladies’ dinner at mess on Christmas Day. I 
am inclined to think it was Dolly, the youngest 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 287 

sub., freshest from home, and with a hidden love 
for feminine society still lurking under his stable 
jacket, and not yet entirely suppressed by that of 
polo ponies, Rigbys, and squadron movements. 
I rather fancy, too, he was actuated solely by a 
wish to spend a pleasant evening with Miss Nina, 
the Colonel's daughter, just out from home. 

Be it how it may, the scheme received very 
general approval. Fellows felt that they ought to 
give some sort of entertainment to the station, 
and those who were averse to it took three days’ 
leave and went out shooting. 

Stern and hard as his nickname implied, the 
Iron Colonel would have been less than human if 
he could have resisted his little daughter’s sparkle 
of delight as he casually remarked, over a cigar: 

“The fellows are talking of a ladies’ dinner at 
mess on Christmas Day. I suppose you don’t 
want to go?” 

He himself had hardly dined at mess if he 
could help it since he commanded the regiment. 

Christmas Day felt very strange to Nina when 
she awoke to find the sunlight streaming in 
through the deep veranda and open door; the 
black ayah crouching by her bed ; the room huge, 


288 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

bare, and whitewashed. The only sign of rejoic- 
ing was in the decorations put up by the serv- 
ants, and which took the form of garlands of 
marigolds strung by their stalks across the por- 
tico and the gateway. Outside, the crows cawed 
incessantly, and the trumpets rang across from 
the barracks. 

Nina’s mind wandered back to former English 
Christmases, and she came to the conclusion 
India was unsatisfactory, and not half as nice as 
the voyage out had been. 

“Will you come to church with me, father?” 
she asked timidly, as he entered the drawing- 
room, the bearer fastening his gold lines round 
his neck and putting the finishing touches to the 
magnificence of his full dress. 

“Nonsense, child! I must go with the regi- 
ment.” 

Nina sighed. She had now been three months 
with her father, and they did not seem to under- 
stand each other any better. She knew him to 
be a fine soldier, and that the regiment was 
proud of their Iron Colonel as a commanding 
officer. But underneath that hard, cold exterior 
she did so long to find a loving, tender parent. 
Her life was very dull at Dustypore, and some- 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 289 

how her thoughts constantly went back to the 
P. & 0. and Jack Harrage. 

The sound of the band playing “Church Bells” 
over on the parade ground warned her it was 
time for service. As she drove past Dolly’s bun- 
galow she saw that young officer getting on his 
pony to canter off to parade. Watching him in 
the gloom of the veranda, she fancied she de- 
scried a familiar figure, cigar in mouth. A thrill 
of delight passed over her, and I fancy she hardly 
attended as much to the service as she should 
have done. Anyhow, as she watched the Crim- 
sons swing away from the church portico to the 
inspiriting strains of the band, her heart sang for 
joy that Christmas morning. 

The anteroom of the Crimson Cuirassiers was 
as comfortable as it could be made by a varied 
collection of cretonne-covered wicker chairs, peri- 
odically smashed up on “big” nights. But it 
seemed paradise to Nina as she sat there before 
dinner, making conversation with the giggling 
wife of the Collector, and saw a scarlet-clad infan- 
try officer enter with Dolly. The next minute, 
with her head in a whirl, she was being intro- 
duced to “My school chum, Captain Harrage.” 

A rush for dinner followed. The Colonel, with 


-2 go WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

anything but an amiable expression, took in the 
Collector’s wife, whose husband followed with 
Nina. He was a naturally dull little man, whose 
mind had become fossilized with twenty-five 
years of India. He devoted himself to the 
Crimsons’ menu, leaving Nina plenty of leis- 
ure to listen to the chaff and laughter which 
emanated from either end of the long table, 
groaning under racing and presentation plate, 
where congregated the junior 'officers, and to 
catch constantly Jack Harrage’s eye. 

After dinner an awful interval of penance fol- 
lowed for Nina when alone with the ladies. 
Finally, she left them alone to discuss the mala- 
dies of infants and the petty larceny of domes- 
tics, and turned over a paper to collect her 
thoughts. 

After what seemed an age, some of the 
younger men slipped in, leaving their seniors to 
smoke and talk. 

“Let’s have a ladies’ pool,” suggested one; 
“love game.” 

“Come along now, Mrs. Smith, darlin’,” quoth 
the Vet., who had dined well, if not wisely, to the 
Quartermaster’s wife, “it’s a poor heart that never 
rejoices, and shure isn’t it Christmas night?” 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 291 


“Lor, Mr. McCartney,” returned the lady, 
bridling, “but I never ’andled a cue in my 
life.” 

“Do come, Miss Heytesbury,” whispered Dolly 
to Nina, “don’t you see we must do something /” 

They trooped into the billiard-room, where 
Nina was given a ball, and played in her turn 
after two or three times of asking, for she was 
deep in conversation with Jack Harrage by the 
open window. 

“You seemed surprised to see me to-night.” 

“I fancied I saw you in Mr. Gray's veranda 
this morning. But I wasn’t sure.” 

“Didn’t I tell you I’d turn up? I couldn’t get 
leave before. Do you mean to say you didn’t 
trust me?” 

“Green on blue, brown’s your player,” gabbled 
the native marker. Nina went up to the table 
and made a miss. 

“There, Miss Heytesbury,” remarked the Ma- 
jor; “that’s your last life. I regret to say you’re 
defunct.” 

“I’m so glad,” whispered Jack. “Come into 
the veranda; it’s such a lovely night.” 

“Yes,” said she, hardly knowing what she said, 
“only much colder than those moonlight nights 


292 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 


at sea. How moonlight disguises the place and 
makes it pretty !” 

Harrage turned and looked her full in the face. 

“Miss Heytesbury — Nina, you do remember 
those nights at sea? Oh! so often, especially 
that last evening, I was so nearly speaking to 
you, but it wouldn’t have done. Now please 
listen, don’t turn away, Nina! It’s all altered, 
it’s all right now; I’ve got my company; and 
more than that, my cousin’s been killed — an 
accident — and I’m my uncle’s heir. And I’ve 
come here to ask you — to tell you ” 

He never finished, for he got his arm round 
her waist, and the next minute her head was on 
his shoulder, and he was kissing her. 

“Miss Heytesbury! Miss Heytesbury !’’ said 
a voice at the window. “Mr. and Mrs. Brown 
want to say good-night to you.’’ 

And Nina escaped back into the glaring room. 

“I shall come and see the Colonel to-morrow 
morning,” whispered Harrage later, as he put on 
her cloak. 

An hour or so after, Dolly and Jack were walk- 
ing down the moonlit road to the former’s bun- 
galow. 

“I say, old chappie,” cried Dolly, breaking 


WITH THE CRIMSOH CUIRASSIERS. 293 

silence, “you needn’t walk such a trot, it’s close 
by. By the bye,” he added, “I hope you’ve not 
been awfully bored. But it being Christmas 
night, and women about, made it rather deadly.’’ 

“Deadly? My dear boy,’’ cried Jack, # throw- 
ing away the end of his cigar, “it’s the jolli- 
est ” 

The jubilant expression of his friend’s face and 
tone made Dolly stare. Then a sudden light 
seemed to break in upon him. 

“Well, now I come to think of it, you have 
had rather the best of it with Miss Heytesbury. 
She’s awfully pretty, but she’s always down on 
me somehow,” he added rather mournfully. 

Just then the canter of a horse’s hoof sounded 
behind them on the dusty side of the road, 
accompanied with shouts and chaff. 

“It’s only the omnibus,” explained Dolly. 

The “omnibus” was Benham’s old gray Arab, 
which he rode to mess to save the polish of his 
boots, and which as many others as could sit 
behind habitually assisted him in riding back 
from mess. 

The friends did not speak again till they found 
themselves in Dolly’s room. It was very bare; 
its owner had about fifteen hundred a year of his 


294 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS . 

own, but might only have had one, to judge by 
its furniture, which consisted chiefly of boxes 
and saddles, rows of boots, and bunches of polo- 
sticks, with a small camp-bed in the center. 

As the only easy-chair was occupied by a sleep- 
ing terrier, Harrage sat down on the edge of the 
bed, and Dolly yelled to a slumbering bearer in 
the veranda till the latter produced some soda 
water and tumblers. Dolly measured out the 
whisky, and then advanced, glass in hand, to his 
friend. But he paused. 

“What’s up, old chap? You look as if you’d 
turned up trumps!” 

Jack jumped up and slapped his friend so 
vehemently on the back that he nearly made him 
spill the drink. 

“And so I have, Dolly, old man ! Congratu- 
late me! She is the ” 

Dolly’s mouth opened, and the drink had an- 
other narrow escape. 

“She? What? Who? Miss Heytesbury? Oh, 
Gemini! what an ass I’ve been! Of course that’s 
why you wanted to come and put up with me.” 

And he sat down dejectedly on the bed, and 
tossed off the potion himself to hide his mortifi- 
cation. 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 295 

“I’m going to tackle the old un to-morrow 
morning,” were Jack’s last words as he turned in. 

“Well, you’ll find him a tough nut to crack,” 
rejoined Dolly from his pillows. “No one has 
ever yet got to the soft side of him. Even she 
has not improved him as we thought she would.” 

After a late breakfast the Colonel sat next 
morning in the veranda smoking, in plain clothes. 
There was no parade or orderly-room, and he 
was not going near barracks ; for even in such an 
admirable regiment as the Crimson Cuirassiers, 
Christmas comes but once a year, and the officers 
were so lavish in their troop dinners that the 
men needed a day to get over them. 

Nina flitted above the veranda singing for very 
blitheness of heart, watering her plants, feeding 
her parrots. As he watched her the Iron Colo- 
nel’s face softened ever so little. Was she at 
last stealing into his long-frozen heart? 

A horse came up the drive. Probably an 
orderly with papers to sign. But the old bearer 
brought a card on a waiter : 

“Captain John Harrage.” 

All the softness instantly faded out of the Iron 


296 WITH THE CRIMSON C UIRA SSIERS. 

Colonel’s face, giving place to a look of strong 
hatred as he glared blankly at the card. Then 
he looked up, and its owner stood before him. 

Tall and handsome, but rather embarrassed, 
wishing the whole thing well over that he might 
go and look on Nina, Harrage could not for the 
life of him understand why the Colonel should 
look at him so alarmingly. But he knew he was 
a good match, he felt sure of Nina, and, not 
being naturally deficient in pluck, went boldly to 
work. 

“I must apologize for coming so early, Colo- 
nel,” he began, his uneasiness increasing, “but I 
couldn’t rest any longer without speaking to 
you. I’ve come to tell you — to ask you — fact is, 
I’ve proposed to your daughter and I hope ” 

The Colonel looked down again at the card, 
and then again at the young fellow. He rose 
slowly and stood back a few paces, and looked 
him all over from the top of his sun-helmet to 
the last button of his gaiter. Harrage returned 
the stare, thinking the Colonel indeed more diffi- 
cult to get on with than he had anticipated for 
he was doubtless mad. 

“Good God,” faltered the elder man at last, “I 
could swear it was the same twenty years after !” 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 297 

Jack thought he had better play his trump 
card. 

“ Perhaps you are unaware that recently, 
through the death of my cousin, I am, in posi- 
tion and prospects, no unworthy- ” 

The Colonel turned sharply upon him. 

“Not another word ! The less you say the less 
you’ll have to regret. Listen!” 

The look of hate was gone. He had resumed 
his habitual icy manner, but was evidently re- 
pressing violent emotions with a mighty effort. 

“Listen!” he Said, sitting down and motioning 
to Jack to do the same, but speaking with 
knitted brow and averted face, looking out into 
the compound. 

“Twenty years ago I was in another regiment, 
the Scarlet Lancers.” 

“My father was a short time in them,” mur- 
mured Jack. 

Without, apparently, noticing the interruption 
the Colonel continued : 

“I had not been married long. Nina was only 
two. I sent her and her mother up to the hills 
out of the heat. I did it for the best ; I know I 
was not always tender to her, that I often neg- 
lected her ; I blame myself for much ; but this I . 


298 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

did for the best. She was very young and inex- 
perienced, and I asked a man in the regiment, a 
married man, with a wife and boy at home, my 
friend whom I trusted, to look after her, and, by 
God, he did! There was a great deal of talk; it 
came to my ears. I rushed up to the hill-station, 
madly jealous ; I struck her! Then she left me, 
with him of course. He left the army; I ex- 
changed. It was all over India at the time. 
Did you never hear of it?” 

“Never,” replied Jack, interested and aston- 
ished. “An awful business! But if it makes 
you afraid of marriage for Nina, rest assured 
nothing of the kind shall ever ” 

The Colonel rose from his chair, and looked 
fixedly at Harrage. 

“Young man,” he said, “the man who wrecked 
my life, who made me the hopeless, faithless 
wretch you see me, was your father!” 

With that he turned on his heel and strode 
into the drawing-room to meet the white face of 
his child, who had overheard all and fell sense- 
less at his feet. 

“He’s ad d brute!” said Dolly to himself, 

as he came out of the Colonel’s bungalow, nearly 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS . 299 

twelve months later, where Nina was lying on 
the sofa so weak and white after another attack 
of fever, that it made Dolly miserable to see her. 

“He’s a d d brute, and she’s just breaking her 

heart about Harrage.” 

Of course Dolly was an fait with the unhappy 
termination of his friend’s love-affair, though 
without knowing the reason which led to it. A 
week later he met Jack Harrage at a down- 
country race meeting. The latter looked seedy. 

“I’m just going to cut it all,” he said. “My 
uncle wants me at home to look after things, and 
I’m sick of the service!” 

Dolly opened his eyes, for he knew Jack used 
to consider soldiering the only thing worth living 
for. 

Then Jack asked : 

“Any news?” 

Dolly knew what that meant, and told him 
Nina had been ill again, and added that she was 
leaving Dustypore for a week’s change at Sir- 
dhana, an old native palace hard by. 

Knowing this, imagine Jack Harrage’s horror, 
on returning to his regiment, to read in the first 
paper he took up : 

“Fatal Accident at Sirdhana.— A n alarm- 


300 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

ing carriage accident took place on Thursday at 
Sirdhana, where Miss Heytesbury, daughter of 
Colonel Heytesbury, of the Crimson Cuirassiers, 
had gone for change of air. The horses bolted in 
the carriage, the groom was thrown out and killed, 
and the vehicle upset opposite the Roman Cath- 
olic convent, whither Miss Heytesbury was con- 
veyed, and found to be suffering from concussion 
of the brain.” 

Jack went straight to his Colonel and asked 
for a few days’ leave, looking so upset that it 
was granted without a word. 

When Nina recovered consciousness twenty- 
four hours after her accident, she found herself 
lying in the room she had been occupying in the 
Sirdhana palace. 

This was a large, double-storied building, 
standing in a garden, which had been erected 
some hundred years before by a European 
adventurer who had married a powerful begum of 
those parts. She was a woman of strong charac- 
ter, who, being converted to Christianity, had 
built the Roman Catholic cathedral, convent, and 
schools close by. The Sirdhana palace, with its 
green groves and terrace, was a favorite resort 
with the European officers from Dustypore, 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 301 

The room was large and lofty and fairly fur- 
nished. Portraits of the grim begum and her 
French husband looked down upon Nina from 
the walls. The cathedral bells were ringing for 
vespers, and a European Sister of Mercy, in her 
conventional garb, sat by Nina’s bed. She was a 
tall, thin, wan-looking woman, whose ascetic face, 
in its fearful grave-clothes headdress, looked 
probably older than it really was. But her ex- 
pression was kind though sad, and it became 
almost transfigured with delight when she per- 
ceived that Nina was herself again. Kneeling 
down she covered the girl’s hand with kisses, and 
then, closing her eyes, offered prayers of thanks- 
giving, while great tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Then the doctors came in, and she disappeared. 
When Nina asked for her later, she was told that 
Sister Magdalen had overdone herself with penance 
and prayers, and had had one of her heart attacks. 

However next day she came back to Nina’s 
bedside, and at the latter’s earnest request took 
up her post there permanently. Something 
seemed to draw the poor heartbroken child to 
this sad woman, who seemed to have suffered 
too. In her, at last, she found the sympathy she 
so longed for. 


302 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

Before the day was out, Nina was lying with 
her hand clasped in Sister Madgalen’s, pouring 
into her sympathizing ear all her sad story about 
Jack Harrage. 

‘‘I can’t forget him, though I’ve tried to,” she 
concluded. “And it does seem so terribly hard 
we should be separated like this through no fault 
of our own.” 

Sister Magdalen caught her breath sharply. 

“Surely, if my mother had ever thought of the 
misery her conduct would inflict on her child, 
she would have paused ere it was too late. But 
she could not have been good and loving as you 
are, sister,” she added, looking up. “But why 
do you cry, dear sister?” 

And she tried to draw down the wan face to 
her lips. 

But Sister Magdalen quietly put her aside, and 
sinking on her knees by the bed covered her face 
with her hands. 

“No, no, child, not that ! I am not worthy, I 
am not good; no one is good. I am the most 
miserable of sinners!” And her lips moved in 
silent prayer. Then she hurriedly left the room. 

A carriage drove up to the broad flight of 
steps, and a young man jumped out hastily and 


with the crimson cuirassiers. 3°3 

advanced eagerly toward Sister Magdalen with 
inquiries after Nina. She answered him at 
length, allaying the terrible anxiety which had 
devoured him on his journey ever since he had 
heard of the accident. Then she added : 

“I fancy you must be Captain Harrage. To- 
morrow is Christmas Day ; come over here again, 
and perhaps I may have good news for you.” 

The Colonel arrived late on Christmas Eve. 
He had been away on a distant court martial at 
the time of his daughter’s accident, and had now 
come as fast as duty and the train would allow 
him. 

Till he heard how near he had been to losing 
her, I fancy he had hardly realized how much she 
was to him, and there was very little of the Iron 
Colonel left about him as he clasped her in his 
arms with his eyes full of tears. 

The first thing on Christmas morning Nina 
begged him to go and look for the kind sister 
who had nursed her, and thank her himself. 

He sought her in the cathedral — a white- 
washed building in pseudo-Gothic style, with a 
thin Italian campanile. The interior boasted a 
tawdry altar and the elaborate tombs of the 
begum and her husband. 


364 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

High mass was being celebrated. A choir of 
native Christian boys were singing the “Gloria in 
Excelsis,” while the sisters knelt around. The 
music was inferior, the surroundings tawdry, yet 
the Colonel felt strangely moved and softened as 
the divine Christmas greeting of “Peace on earth, 
good-will toward men,” rang through the building. 

Suddenly one of the sisters rose from her 
knees and came toward him standing at the door. 
Something in her walk and figure seemed to him 
like a memory of long ago, but her conventual 
dress was a complete disguise. 

“You are Colonel Heytesbury,” said the voice, 
which sounded strangely familiar. “Your child 
has been given back to you out of the very jaws 
of death. Do not stand between her and the 
man she loves. Make her happy.” 

The Colonel stared at her coldly and proudly. 
Then he recollected himself. 

“If you are Sister Magdalen, I have come 
specially to thank you most heartily for all your 
kindness to my daughter. But I am really at a 
loss to understand why you should interfere in 
her private affairs,” he added haughtily. 

The sister laid her hand on his arm and looked 
up into his face. 


WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 305 

“Why? Because I am her mother!” 

Then she continued hurriedly, with downcast 
eyes : 

“I know I have forfeited all my rights over 
her; I know I am not worthy that she should 
even guess who I am ! I do not seek to palliate 
my crime, which, God^knows, I have repented of 
with tears and penances these many years; I do 
not ask you to forgive me. But, Harold Heytes- 
bury,” she continued, sinking on her knees at his 
feet and pointing toward the altar, “as you hope 
for mercy above, I ask you to be merciful to 
those who have done you no harm !” 

The Colonel walked into the church and sat 
down on the nearest seat to gain time. There 
was a fearful struggle in the man’s heart between 
pride and love. But the choir sang out again 
that angelic message of forgiveness, and the wom- 
an waiting in the porch watched his face. 

At last he rose and came slowly out. As he did 
so he ran against Jack Harrage coming up the steps. 

The latter drew back, the Colonel hesitated a 
moment, and then held out his hand. 

“Will you come out with me? I want to 
speak to you.” 

Sister Magdalen watched them moving to- 


3°6 WITH THE CRIMSON CUIRASSIERS. 

gether across the hot, glaring road to the palace, 
and then she slipped in by a back way and went 
to Nina’s room. 

“Have you seen my father?” asked the latter. 
“He wanted to see you to thank you.” 

“He has done so amply,” replied Sister Magda- 
len, coming up to Nina’s s£>fa. Then she added: 

“I think I have provided for you as happy a 
Christmas Day as you ever had.” 

“Happier than last year?” asked Nina, with a 
sigh. 

“Far, as you will see. But kiss me first.” 

She knelt down, and Nina’s fair young face 
kissed the worn one, which was lit up with a 
smile of deepest peace. 

Then voices were heard approaching, and al- 
most before Sister Magdalen had time to escape 
the Colonel led Jack Harrage into the room. 

An hour later Nina was saying to the latter: 
“Before you go back to-night, Jack, I must show 
you to the kind sister who nursed me, and who has 
heard all about you. Father, send and fetch her.” 

She was found kneeling as in prayer before the 
cathedral altar; but when they who came to 
fetch her touched her, they found the poor, suf- 
fering heart had stopped beating forever. 


IN DEATH THEY WERE NOT 
DIVIDED. 


This was how it happened. In the very be- 
ginning it was all the fault of that sou west gale 
in the Channel and the Bay of Biscay which com- 
pelled her chaperon to take to her berth and stop 
there. Thus Beatrice Brundon, at the first few 
meals on board the good ship Bunderbust , had to 
chaperon herself ; and he, # Gregory Ayshford, 
subaltern of artillery, sat nearly opposite to her 
the first day at dinner. To eat with your plate 
in a fiddle, holding on the while with the other 
hand to the edge of the table, requires some 
adroitness. Overhead, in a swinging rack, re- 
pose wineglasses and bottles, which would other- 
wise infallibly start toboggan races up and down 
the table. He handed her the water; she looked 
up and thanked him with a smile, at the same 
time spilling half in her endeavor to fill her glass. 
This misadventure she attributed later, not 


3°7 


308 IN DEA TH THE y WERE NOT DIVIDED. 

entirely to a lurch the ship gave — Gregory’s 
eyes fixed on her made her nervous. 

By next day at dinner time, the former had 
tipped the chief steward, and managed that his 
place at table was shifted from the vicinity of a 
frowsy High Court Judge to Beatrice’s side. 

When the chaperon recovered her appetite, 
and emerged once more into the outer world of 
the saloon, she found the pair chatting and 
laughing as if they had known each other all 
their lives. 

But they were not entirely idle and frivolous 
on board ship, these two. By the time they 
reached Malta she had instructed him in the 
mysteries of r ever sis ; and had, in return, been 
taught by him how to throw a rope quoit into a 
bucket with considerable precision. On balmy, 
starlit evenings on deck, when the sea was like 
oil, and the piano jingled under the awning, they 
discovered their waltz steps agreed admirably; 
while their delight in the long phosphorescent 
streak in the wake of the Bunderbust (to be seen 
best from a quiet corner behind the wheel-house) 
was mutual and intense. They bought lace to- 
gether at Malta, and ostrich feathers at Aden, 


W DEA 77 / THE Y WERE NOT DIVIDED. 309 

and in both their peregrinations ashore at these 
places unaccountably lost their chaperon. 

What wonder that when the Bunderbust 
dropped anchor off the Apollo Bunder, in Bom- 
bay Harbor, each felt that the best part of their 
lives had come to an end. India loomed before 
them wide and vast. Should they ever meet 
again ? 

Mrs. Brundon sat in dim indolence in her bun- 
galow, and wove matrimonial webs for the daugh- 
ter she had not seen since she was six years old. 
Herself the wife of a great civilian functionary, 
ruling hundreds of thousands of dusky fellow- 
subjects in a district as large as an English 
county, and rolling in rupees and honors, Mrs. 
Brundon dreamed of a like position for her 
daughter. And when Beatrice made her appear- 
ance, almost a stranger, but as fair a specimen of 
Anglo-Saxon maidenhood as could be found 
between Peshawur and Galle, Mrs. Brundon 
promised to herself that she should make a great 
match. 

The beautiful, but all too short, cold weather 
of India deepened into a fierce glaring spring, 


31^ TH DEA TH THE Y WERE NOT DIVIDED . 

and the steady rise of the thermometer warned 
all who were able to do so to betake themselves 
to fresh woods and pastures new ere the merry 
month of May burst in all its fury over the sun- 
baked plains. Up among the ilexes and rhodo- 
dendrons of Nynee Tal, where the giant crags of 
Cheena mirror themselves in the green willow- 
girdled lake, all was fresh, and cool, and bracing. 
Ferns carpeted ravine and dell, and fringed the 
gnarled trunks of the evergreen oaks. Rhodo- 
dendrons dyed crimson patches on the mountain 
sides, and the notes of the koel — a fair imitation 
of the cuckoo — rang from the forest depths. But 
Beatrice’s heart sighed with the poet : 

Ah, when in other climes we meet 
Some vale or isle enchanting, 

Where all looks flow’ry, wild, and sweet, 

And naught save love is wanting ; 

We think how great had been our bliss 
If heaven had but assigned us 
To live and die in scenes like this 
With some we’ve left behind us. 

Not, however, that love was conspicuous by 
its absence at Nynee Tal. An contraire, the 
naughty little god revels in such an earthly para- 
dise. But it was not the sort of love Beatrice 
sighed for. Girls are so unreasonable ! There 


IN DEA TH THE Y WERE NO T DIVIDED. 3 1 1 

was Mr. Cramwell, a rising young secretary to 
Government ; Mr. Brydges, the clever engineer 
just appointed to a coveted post; Mr. Judge, the 
magistrate of Cutcheriabad ; all literally pester- 
ing her with attentions. They would fain have 
filled her programme at dances with their united 
autographs; they squabbled and sulked as to 
who should be her partner at tennis, her com- 
panion in her mountain rides. But she would 
have nothing to say to them. She could not for- 
get the Bunderbust and Gregory Ayshford. 

Mrs. Brundon first marveled and then remon- 
strated when one after another eligible parti was 
dismissed. But she made no effort to under- 
stand the character or to elicit the confidence of 
the child so long parted from her by the cruel 
exigencies of an Indian life, and brought up 
among strangers. There are as good fish in the 
sea as ever came out of it ; the child is young 
and can afford to wait, quoth the mother. 

But the end of the season brought other fish 
to her net than Mrs. Brundon intended. Full of 
memories of the Bunderbust and the jolly voyage 
out, came Gregory Ayshford to Nynee Tal. 
The rains were over and gone ; the monsoon of 
Beatrice’s discontent was passed ; and the world 


312 IN DEA TH THE V WERE NO T DIVIDED. 

smiled once more green and fresh in the Septem- 
ber sunshine. Fate, in the shape of an attack of 
fever, which opportunely prostrated Mrs. Brun- 
don, favored the lovers. 

They rowed about the lake in the cool of the 
evenings, when the Tiger’s Hill cast long shad- 
ows across the green water. They scaled to- 
gether the mountain top in early morning on 
active hill ponies, and gazed on the wonderful 
white world of snow and ice, ere it became veiled 
in the rising haze of heat. Together they 
watched from Snow Seat a veritable transforma- 
tion scene, repeated each evening when a won- 
drous sunset cast rosy reflections on the snow 
giants opposite. 

And this was the end of it all — only this : A 
stiff, cold English lady seated in her veranda 
drawing-room, and calmly crushing the dearest 
hopes of the young man who stood appealingly 
before her. A young girl sobbing on her bed, 
while her lover rides away broken hearted down 
the hill. Only this. But it was enough. 

As if in pity at their fate, the- heavens began 
to weep again. For three long days the mon- 
soon burst out afresh, lashing the lake into fury, 


IN DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED. 313 

scarring the mountain side with water courses, 
and goading the torrents into mad cascades. 
The world, the while, lay wrapped in fog, and 
the patter of rain on roof and tree ceased not. 

When the skies lifted somewhat, a vague 
rumor of alarm spread through Nynee Tal. 
Undermined by rain and torrent, part of the 
steep hillside had fallen, burying a house and 
some natives. A panic spread, and the news 
went round that the whole mountain-side was 
unsafe. 

Mrs. Brundon was out when Gregory galloped 
wildly up to the veranda whence he had been so 
ruthlessly expelled, and calling, all unmindful of 
the past, to Beatrice, by name, rushed into the 
house. 

But, even as she came toward him, there was a 
cracking of joists and timbers and the structure 
reeled and shook. Instinctively Gregory caught 
Beatrice in his arms. 

No human eye saw, no one this side of eternity 
will ever know, what happened next. A great 
cloud of dust, like that which of old veiled the 
destruction of Gomorrah, arose from the moun- 
tain-side and mercifully hid the scene, 


3H IN DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED. 

When it cleared away there was a great scar on 
the hillside, and a vast pile of cUbris filled up the 
head of the valley. Beneath lay buried houses, 
temples, shops, soldiers, priests, natives, and 
under that great funeral pile lies to this day the 
nameless grave of Gregory and Beatrice. 


FINIS. 





























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